trails/openspec/changes/archive/2026-07-16-fit-parsing-hardening/design.md

Context

fitToGpx(buffer, name) uses fit-file-parser (force: true), reads only parsed.records, filters on presence of lat/lon, and emits generateGpx({ tracks: [trackPoints] }) — one segment. The parser also exposes sessions (with start_time, total_timer_time, sport, sub_sport) and events (event: 'timer', event_type: 'stop_all' | 'start'), which we currently discard. Downstream, movingTime in @trails-cool/gpx treats segment boundaries as hard breaks and per-interval gaps > 60 s as pauses — but only if segments/timestamps are honest. GPX validation requires ≥2 points.

Endurain's utils_fit.py informs the quirk list: enhanced fields preferred, per-session record slicing, cursor resets at session boundaries so speed doesn't bridge gaps, coordinate conversion sanity, zero-sentinel handling.

Goals / Non-Goals

Goals:

• Honest GPX out of every FIT file trails will realistically receive (Wahoo, Garmin, COROS): pauses and sessions become segment boundaries; corrected fields win; garbage records can't poison stats.
• One conversion module stays the single seam for all providers, with a richer but backward-compatible return shape.

Non-Goals:

• Sensor streams (HR/power/cadence/temp) — no journal model for them; revisit if activity streams ever land.
• Laps, structured workouts, developer fields, monitoring/wellness messages.
• Splitting multisport files into multiple activities (Endurain does; trails keeps one activity per provider workout — a triathlon imports as one activity with three segments).

Decisions

1. Segmentation from events first, gaps second

Split segments on timer stop_all → next start pairs from the events stream. Files whose events are missing/unreliable (some devices) get a fallback: a record-to-record timestamp gap > 5 min starts a new segment. Both thresholds as named constants. Rationale: events are the device's own truth; the gap fallback matches movingTime's MAX_GAP philosophy at a coarser grain and catches event-less files.

2. One activity, one <trkseg> per session

Records are sliced into sessions by [start_time, start_time + total_elapsed_time] windows (Endurain's split_records_by_activity approach), each becoming a segment (further split by pauses within). Keeping one activity preserves trails' one-workout-one-activity invariant and avoids inventing a multi-activity import UX; segment boundaries are enough to keep stats honest.

3. Validation gates mirror the GPX-parser-robustness rules

Coordinates must be finite and in range or the record is dropped; altitude non-finite → undefined (point kept); record without timestamp → dropped (FIT records are timestamped by spec; absence means corruption). This intentionally matches the policies in the gpx-parser-robustness change so both import formats behave identically downstream.

4. Return shape: { gpx, sport } instead of string

fitToGpx returns { gpx: string | null, sport: SportType | null } where sport maps FIT sport/sub_sport (session-level, first session wins) through a small table to trails' SPORT_TYPES (running→run, trail_running sub-sport→run, cycling→ride, gravel_cycling→gravel, mountain→mtb, hiking→hike, walking→walk, alpine/backcountry ski→ski, else→other/null). Call sites destructure; Wahoo's existing workout-type mapping stays as fallback when no FIT file exists.

Risks / Trade-offs

• [fit-file-parser may not surface events/sessions uniformly across devices] → Fixture-driven: gather real files (Wahoo export, Garmin sample) before coding; the gap fallback covers event-less files.
• [Multi-segment GPX changes stats for re-imported activities] → Only new imports are affected (no reprocessing); moving time gets more accurate.
• [Sport mapping disagreements with providers' own type fields] → Provider-specific mapping wins where the provider sends an explicit type; FIT sport is the fallback, not the override — call-site rule documented in code.

Migration Plan

Library-shaped change inside the journal app; ships with normal deploy; no schema change; rollback = revert. Existing activities untouched.

Open Questions

• None blocking. Whether COROS FIT files carry quirks beyond this set is checked when that integration starts (fixtures first).