Stacked @card: duplicate id from a non-editable card raises IndexError, or silently discards card content

[nileshpatil6]

Summary

CardComponentCollector._finalize() builds the id -> uuid lookup over all @card decorators, but validates and de-duplicates ids over editable cards only, and does that validation after an early return. Two things follow from that mismatch: a task-killing IndexError, and silent loss of card content.

Both are reachable from ordinary stacked @card decorators. The code is in metaflow/plugins/cards/component_serializer.py, unchanged since #893 (Jan 2022).

1. IndexError kills the step

@card(type="default_json", id="mycard")
@card(type="blank")
@card(type="blank", id="mycard")
@step
def start(self):
    ...

File ".../metaflow/plugins/cards/card_decorator.py", line 312, in task_pre_step
    current.card._finalize()
File ".../metaflow/plugins/cards/component_serializer.py", line 586, in _finalize
    % (nui, non_unique_ids[0])
IndexError: list index out of range
Task failed.

Why: card_ids is populated from all_card_meta, so the duplicate-detection trigger

id_set = set(card_ids)
if len(card_ids) != len(id_set):

fires on a collision contributed by any card. But the offender list is computed over editable cards only:

not_none_id_cards = [c for c in editable_cards_meta if c["card_id"] is not None]
...
non_unique_ids = [idx for idx in id_set
                  if len(list(filter(lambda x: x["card_id"] == idx, not_none_id_cards))) > 1]

default_json has ALLOW_USER_COMPONENTS = False, so it is not in editable_cards_meta. The duplicate is real, the offender list is empty, and non_unique_ids[0] raises. The same applies to the other shipped non-editable types (error, taskspec_card) and to any third-party card type.

2. Silent loss of content when there is exactly one editable card

@card(type="default_json", id="mycard")
@card(type="blank", id="mycard")
@step
def start(self):
    current.card["mycard"].append(Markdown("# IMPORTANT"))

Here len(editable_cards_meta) == 1, so

if len(editable_cards_meta) == 1:
    self._default_editable_card = editable_cards_meta[0]["uuid"]
    return

returns before any duplicate check runs. _card_id_map["mycard"] keeps whichever card registered last. If that is the non-editable default_json, everything appended to current.card["mycard"] is discarded. No warning, task succeeds, content gone.

Suggested direction

Resolve ids over one consistent population, before both early returns, rather than shrinking the map (the class docstring documents current.card['myid'] as working for non-default-editable cards, so the map should keep spanning all cards).

The part I would want your opinion on is the collision policy. When an id is claimed by several cards and exactly one of them is editable, the options are:

• resolve the id to the editable card, since it is the only colliding card that can render user components; or
• drop the id and warn, treating any duplicate uniformly.

The first fixes the silent-loss case; the second is simpler and more predictable, but turns something that appears to work today into a warning.

I have a patch implementing the first option, with unit tests covering both failure modes and end-to-end runs of the two flows above. Happy to open a PR if a maintainer confirms the direction, or to switch it to the second option.

Environment

main at d2dd7f9, Python 3.14, Linux.