oliverdavies.uk/content/node.4e0d5cba-13d4-497e-a320-d1236df4dce2.yml

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  - value: '2025-05-11T09:00:20+00:00'
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title:
  - value: 'Defining boundaries between custom Drupal modules'
created:
  - value: '2024-02-09T00:00:00+00:00'
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  - value: '2025-05-11T09:00:20+00:00'
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body:
  - value: |
      <p>I recently made a change to a Drupal project with several custom modules.</p>

      <p>As part of the change, there was a method that was no longer being used, so I went ahead and removed it.</p>

      <p>There were no tests for this part of the codebase, and the existing tests were still passing.</p>

      <p>My change was successfully finished and deployed, including removing the unused method.</p>

      <p>A few days later, we noticed cron jobs were no longer running on the website.</p>

      <p>The method I'd removed was attempting to be called from within a different module.</p>

      <p>Because it no longer existed, it was causing an error and stopping the cron job from running successfully.</p>

      <p>When I re-added the method, the cron jobs worked again.</p>

      <p>There were no <code>dependencies</code> set in either module's .info.yml file, though that would only prevent you from uninstalling either module.</p>

      <p>It wouldn't prevent me from deleting code used by another module.</p>

      <h2 id="here%27s-the-thing">Here's the thing</h2>

      <p>This is why I've been <a href="/daily/2024/02/08/experimenting-with-architectural-testing">experimenting with architectural testing</a>. To ensure that modules only use their own code and to start enforcing layers within each module.</p>

      <p>Then, if I had the same situation again, I'd know straight away that there was an issue and not have to wait for the bug to be deployed to production.</p>

              
    format: full_html
    processed: |
      <p>I recently made a change to a Drupal project with several custom modules.</p>

      <p>As part of the change, there was a method that was no longer being used, so I went ahead and removed it.</p>

      <p>There were no tests for this part of the codebase, and the existing tests were still passing.</p>

      <p>My change was successfully finished and deployed, including removing the unused method.</p>

      <p>A few days later, we noticed cron jobs were no longer running on the website.</p>

      <p>The method I'd removed was attempting to be called from within a different module.</p>

      <p>Because it no longer existed, it was causing an error and stopping the cron job from running successfully.</p>

      <p>When I re-added the method, the cron jobs worked again.</p>

      <p>There were no <code>dependencies</code> set in either module's .info.yml file, though that would only prevent you from uninstalling either module.</p>

      <p>It wouldn't prevent me from deleting code used by another module.</p>

      <h2 id="here%27s-the-thing">Here's the thing</h2>

      <p>This is why I've been <a href="/daily/2024/02/08/experimenting-with-architectural-testing">experimenting with architectural testing</a>. To ensure that modules only use their own code and to start enforcing layers within each module.</p>

      <p>Then, if I had the same situation again, I'd know straight away that there was an issue and not have to wait for the bug to be deployed to production.</p>

              
    summary: null
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