# Phase 0: Scraping Spike (Research, Throwaway)

**Status:** ✅ Done
**Parent plan:** [PLAN.md](./PLAN.md)
**Domain:** backend
**Type:** Research / spike — produces documentation only, NO production code.

## Objective

Determine whether marathonbet.by can be scraped anonymously, what the page rendering
strategy looks like, and what the data shapes are. The output is a documented foundation
that Phases 1–9 build on. **This phase is a kill-switch:** if scraping is infeasible, we
stop and renegotiate scope with the customer before writing architecture code.

## Tasks

- [x] Probe `https://www.marathonbet.by/su` (pre-match) anonymously. Document:
  - HTTP status, headers, cookies set
  - Whether content is server-rendered HTML or hydrated client-side
  - URL pattern for sport sections (basketball, hockey, football, etc.)
  - Sport group codes (e.g., basketball = 6 per spec)
- [x] Probe `https://www.marathonbet.by/su/live` (live events). Document:
  - Same as above
  - Whether odds update via XHR/fetch/WebSocket — capture network calls
- [x] Identify event-detail URL pattern and inspect a sample event's full odds page.
- [x] For 3 events across 3 sports (basketball, football, tennis — hockey deferred to Phase 3 verify), capture:
  - Event metadata (sport, country, league, category, scheduled time, event ID)
  - Match-level bets: Win-1 / Draw / Win-2, Win-Fora-1/2 (with handicap value),
    Total Less/More (with threshold)
  - Period-N bets where the sport has periods
- [x] Identify any anti-bot measures: Cloudflare challenges, JS challenges, rate
  limiting, header requirements, fingerprinting hints.
- [x] Test rate behavior: ~10 sequential requests, observe latency / blocks. Do NOT
  hammer — be respectful.
- [x] Document API endpoints if marathonbet.by exposes any internal JSON APIs visible
  in browser network tab (often these are easier to scrape than HTML).
- [x] Decide: HtmlClient + AngleSharp sufficient, or Playwright required (or both)?
- [x] Save 2–3 representative HTML/JSON samples under `spike/captures/` (gitignored;
  for local reference only). Saved 7 fixtures.
- [x] Write `spike/SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` with findings, decisions, and recommended
  scraping strategy for Phase 3.
- [x] Write `spike/SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` with concrete proposed domain field mappings —
  marathonbet.by terms → spec field names (`Bet_Match_Win_1`, etc.).

## Files to Modify/Create

- `spike/SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` — research output (committed to repo)
- `spike/SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` — proposed domain mapping (committed to repo)
- `spike/captures/*.html` / `.json` — local samples (gitignored, NOT committed)

## Acceptance Criteria

- `SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` exists and answers:
  - Is anonymous scraping feasible? (yes/no/conditional)
  - What scraping technology is required? (HttpClient+AngleSharp / Playwright / both)
  - What rate limits / anti-bot constraints apply?
  - What URL patterns and endpoints will Phase 3 target?
- `SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` maps real marathonbet.by data to the customer-spec field names.
- If scraping is infeasible, the document clearly says so and lists alternatives.
- **No production C# code is written in this phase.**

## Notes

- Use WebFetch tool for initial probing; supplement with curl/Bash if Playwright-style
  behavior needs investigation.
- Be respectful — do not hammer the site; sequential requests with 2-second delays.
- The spike is **throwaway** in the sense that no production code is committed, but
  the findings docs are permanent and inform the architecture.
- If marathonbet.by blocks the user agent or geographic region, document this — the
  customer is likely in Belarus and will not see the same blocks.

## Review Checklist

- [x] `SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` answers all required questions above
- [x] `SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` covers all bet types in the customer spec
  (Win/Draw/Win_Fora/Total at Match + Period-N scope)
- [x] No production code committed
- [x] Recommended Phase 3 strategy is concrete and actionable
- [x] Risk register updated if anti-bot or rate-limit issues found

## Handoff to Next Phase

**Anonymous scraping is feasible and recommended technology is HttpClient + AngleSharp.**
No Cloudflare, no JS challenge. Site is fully SSR — all data we need is in the raw HTML.

### What Phase 1 (Domain) needs to know

1. **`SportCode`** is the `data-sport-treeId` attribute / first integer after the
   sport name in `/su/betting/<Sport>+-+<id>`. Customer's "basketball=6" matches
   exactly. Confirmed IDs: Basketball=6, Football=11, Tennis=22723, Hockey=43658.
   Note: there are duplicate "category" tree IDs (e.g., 45356 for live basketball);
   use only the breadcrumb canonical ID as `SportCode`.

2. **`EventCode`** is `data-event-eventId` (numeric, ~26-million range). This is the
   bookmaker's stable event ID — use as primary key for the event in our SQLite.
   `TreeId` is a separate URL-routing ID — keep it for URL building but do not use
   as the entity primary key.

3. **No "Draw" outcome for tennis (and for some basketball variants).** The Domain
   model should make the Draw rate nullable. Customer's spec field `Bet_Match_Draw`
   should serialize to empty cell when null.

4. **Period-N counts vary by sport** (Football: 2; Basketball: 2 halves OR 4 quarters;
   Tennis: variable by match length up to 5 sets; Hockey: 3). The Domain should not
   hardcode a max period count — store `PeriodNumber` as `int` and let
   `PeriodScopeMapper` (Phase 3) decide which periods are valid for which sport.

5. **Bet handicap and total values come from the DOM `<span class="middle-simple">`**
   text, not from the `data-selection-key` (with one exception: Total markets encode
   the threshold in the outcome name, e.g., `Under_213.5`). Domain `Bet.Value` is
   `decimal?` — populated for handicap and total, null for Win/Draw.

6. **`ScheduledAt`** has TWO possible string formats in the listing: `HH:MM` (today)
   or `DD <ru-month> HH:MM` (future). Domain should store as `DateTimeOffset` in
   Moscow time (`Europe/Moscow`, UTC+3). The "today" anchor comes from the
   `initData.serverTime` blob (`YYYY,MM,DD,HH,MM,SS` format). Phase 3 must extract
   server time on every page load and pass it to the date parser.

### What Phase 3 (Scraping) needs to know

Read `spike/SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` end-to-end before designing the scraper.
Highlights:

- **Selector inventory:** in `SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` §1–§3 and in `SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` §5.
- **URL templates** in `SCRAPE_FINDINGS.md` §3.
- **Rate-limit defaults:** 1 req/s, max 4 concurrent, exponential backoff on 429/5xx.
  Use `Microsoft.Extensions.Http.Resilience` (Polly v8).
- **User-Agent rotation:** the only mitigation we observed needing — site does not
  challenge the UA but rotating prevents future fingerprint-based throttling.
- **No Playwright required**, but plumb a `Scraping:UsePlaywright` flag for future flip.

### What Phase 8 (Results loader) needs to know — IMPORTANT DEVIATION

**There is no public results / archive page.** `https://www.marathonbet.by/su/results`
returns 404. The only way to capture finished-event scores is to keep polling the
event detail page until `eventJsonInfo.matchIsComplete === true`, then snapshot
`resultDescription` (e.g., `"2:1 (1:1)"`).

This means Phase 8 must:

1. Maintain a "watch list" of events whose `ScheduledAt + EstimatedDuration` is in
   the past but whose status in our DB is not yet `Completed`.
2. Poll those event detail URLs at a low frequency (every 5 min) until either:
   (a) `matchIsComplete=true` → store final score, mark complete; OR
   (b) detail URL returns 404 → site has expunged the event → mark `ResultUnknown`.
3. Optionally fall back to a third-party score aggregator (flashscore /
   sofascore) — separate Phase 8 design decision.

This is a **deviation from the original Phase 8 plan**, which assumed a results
endpoint to back-fill from. Phase 8 implementer should re-read this and revise
the subplan accordingly before implementation.

### What Phase 5/6 (UI) needs to know

- **Bet handicap and total "main line" picking** is heuristic (see
  `SCHEMA_DRAFT.md` §2.2 and §2.3) and should be exposed as a configurable
  policy. The Settings page in Phase 5 should allow the user to choose
  `MainLinePolicy = ListingDisplay | Closest50_50 | NoSuffixSelection`.
- **Russian-only labels** in the source HTML. Localization layer (Phase 5)
  must translate sport names, period names, and outcome labels to EN; the raw
  Russian strings are the canonical source.

### Critical mappings (deviations from spec wording)

| Customer-spec word | marathonbet.by reality |
| --- | --- |
| `Win_Fora` | `Handicap` market in DOM (`To_Win_Match_With_Handicap`). Same concept, different word. |
| `Total_Less` / `Total_More` | DOM uses `Under` / `Over`. |
| `Period-1` (basketball) | Could be 1st Half or 1st Quarter — needs customer decision (default: 1st Half). |
| `Sport_Code = 6` | `data-sport-treeId="6"` confirmed for Basketball. |