Driftwatch

Plaid / Plaid API (2020-09-14) /

Breakingdirection flip: their tools call this safe

Response field email_address is no longer guaranteed

What changed

Producer-side tools call this non-breaking. For a consumer it is a null dereference on an unknown future date.

Affects email_address on BusinessEmailAddress reachable from 2 operations. Nothing fails at the call; it fails wherever the value is finally used, which is usually somewhere else entirely.

can now be null

Who is affected

Code that reads Plaid's BusinessEmailAddress objects, used by 2 Plaid operations.

Before and after

WhereBeforeAfter
BusinessEmailAddress.email_addressstringnull|string

Code that breaks

// response.email_address may now be absent or null
const email_address = response.email_address ?? fallback;

Based on Plaid’s published API specification. How severity is decided.