From f5c2c7e8c2f8a457627ee938963eca50dc4da59a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: alexpaynex <55271826-alexpaynex@users.noreply.replit.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:38:51 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Improve handling of failed moderation bypasses for elite
 accounts

Update relay.ts to return a hard 'reject' instead of 'shadowReject' when an elite event fails to inject into strfry, ensuring clients retry instead of silently dropping events.

Replit-Commit-Author: Agent
Replit-Commit-Session-Id: 418bf6f8-212b-4bb0-a7a5-8231a061da4e
Replit-Commit-Checkpoint-Type: full_checkpoint
Replit-Commit-Event-Id: ddd878c8-77fd-4ad2-852d-2644c94b18da
Replit-Commit-Screenshot-Url: https://storage.googleapis.com/screenshot-production-us-central1/9f85e954-647c-46a5-90a7-396e495a805a/418bf6f8-212b-4bb0-a7a5-8231a061da4e/Q83Uqvu
Replit-Helium-Checkpoint-Created: true
---
 artifacts/api-server/src/routes/relay.ts | 8 +++++---
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/artifacts/api-server/src/routes/relay.ts b/artifacts/api-server/src/routes/relay.ts
index 22f8fdf..3ab2f0e 100644
--- a/artifacts/api-server/src/routes/relay.ts
+++ b/artifacts/api-server/src/routes/relay.ts
@@ -193,15 +193,17 @@ async function evaluatePolicy(
   }
 
   if (isElite) {
-    // Elite accounts bypass moderation — inject directly into strfry
+    // Elite accounts bypass moderation — inject directly into strfry.
+    // On inject failure, return hard reject so the client knows to retry
+    // (shadowReject would silently drop the event from the sender's perspective).
     const rawJson = JSON.stringify(rawEvent);
     const injectResult = await injectEvent(rawJson);
     if (!injectResult.ok) {
-      logger.warn("elite event inject failed — shadowReject as fallback", {
+      logger.warn("elite event inject failed — returning reject so client can retry", {
         eventId: eventId.slice(0, 8),
         error: injectResult.error,
       });
-      return shadowRejectDecision(eventId);
+      return rejectDecision(eventId, "relay unavailable — please retry");
     }
     return acceptDecision(eventId);
   }