Adding a field with required value creates issues

[cabcookie]

Environment information

System:
  OS: macOS 14.5
  CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Pro
  Memory: 1.74 GB / 32.00 GB
  Shell: /bin/zsh
Binaries:
  Node: 18.19.0 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.19.0/bin/node
  Yarn: undefined - undefined
  npm: 10.2.3 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.19.0/bin/npm
  pnpm: undefined - undefined
NPM Packages:
  @aws-amplify/backend: 1.0.4
  @aws-amplify/backend-cli: 1.1.0
  aws-amplify: 6.4.0
  aws-cdk: 2.148.1
  aws-cdk-lib: 2.148.1
  typescript: 5.5.3
AWS environment variables:
  AWS_STS_REGIONAL_ENDPOINTS = regional
  AWS_NODEJS_CONNECTION_REUSE_ENABLED = 1
  AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG = 1
No CDK environment variables

Data packages

personal-crm@1.25.0 /Users/carskoch/Development/personal-crm
├─┬ @aws-amplify/backend-cli@1.1.0
│ └─┬ @aws-amplify/schema-generator@1.2.0
│   └── @aws-amplify/graphql-schema-generator@0.9.2
└─┬ @aws-amplify/backend@1.0.4
  └─┬ @aws-amplify/backend-data@1.1.0
    └── @aws-amplify/data-construct@1.9.1

Description

I have a model "Activity" in my schema definition. I created several records in the database. Now, I wanted to add a property to the model "hasOpenTasks". I wanted to add a secondary index to this property so I had to add the .required() option to it. However, I have a lot of records where this field is missing. I want Amplify to treat it with the value "false" per default (i.e., hasOpenTasks: a.string().required().default("false")). However, when I retrieve data from the table I receive the following error:

[
  {
    "path": ["getActivity", "hasOpenTasks"],
    "locations": null,
    "message": "Cannot return null for non-nullable type: 'String' within parent 'Activity' (/getActivity/hasOpenTasks)"
  }
]

I need a way to add required fields later to the project. My recommendation is to raise an exception when you add a field to the model which is required but doesn't have a default value. I guess for now, I need to manually add the field to each record by running a script. If it is not possible to add a "default" value for new required fields, I appreciate any functionality that applies changes to existing records when I add required fields so I do not need to run scripts manually.

[AnilMaktala]

Hey @cabcookie, Thanks for bringing this up. It makes sense to update existing records when adding a default for a required field. I'll review this with the engineering team and get back to you.