External Event Ingestion

Overview

On-campus and off-campus events are pulled from external sources on a schedule and normalized into the Event table. External events are indistinguishable from user-created events in terms of user interactions — users can view, save, click, and bookmark them. The only difference is that external events cannot be created, updated, or deleted by users.

Sources

Source	Feed	Data
OSU Content API	On-campus	Club events, talks, socials, university events
Ticketmaster API	Off-campus	Columbus-area concerts, shows, sports

OSU Content API Integration

The Ohio State University publishes campus events through its public Content API.

Endpoint

GET https://content.osu.edu/v2/events

No authentication is required. The endpoint returns all current campus events in a single response.

Response Shape

{
  "lastModified": "2026-03-04T00:13:01.131Z",
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "events": [
      {
        "id": "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?y=2026&mo=3&day=3&e=83306&title=group-fitness-classes",
        "itemHash": "35756176be0527e9dd7a070e26e2ff77",
        "title": "Group Fitness Classes",
        "description": "RPAC/North Rec (check schedule)",
        "content": "**Try a group fitness class...**",
        "startDate": "2026-03-03T11:45:00.000Z",
        "endDate": "2026-03-04T01:15:00.000Z",
        "location": "RPAC/North Rec (check schedule)",
        "tags": ["Sports", "Health and Wellness", "Social"],
        "link": "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?...",
        "label": "Student Life",
        "campus": "columbus",
        "color": "#bb0000"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Field Mapping (OSU → Event)

OSU Content API field	Event field	Notes
id	externalId	URL-format unique identifier
itemHash	—	Used for change detection during upsert
title	title	Direct mapping
description	location	OSU uses description for the short venue string
content	description	Markdown body of the event
startDate	startAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp
endDate	endAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp
location	location	Preferred over description when present
tags	—	Not mapped directly; AI tagging generates our own tags
link	externalUrl	Link back to the original event page
label	—	Used for logging/debugging only
campus	—	Filtered to "columbus" campus only

Change Detection

On each sync, the ingestion worker compares the itemHash of each incoming event against the stored hash for that externalId. If the hash is unchanged, the event is skipped (no DB write). If the hash differs, the event is upserted with the new field values.

Sync Behavior

Both sources are synced via scheduled Cloudflare Worker cron triggers, running every 6 hours.

Upsert Logic

Events are upserted using externalId as the dedup key. If an event with the same externalId exists, its fields are updated. If not, a new event is created.

Field Mapping (General)

External events are normalized to the Event schema:

• source is set to OSU_API or TICKETMASTER.
• creatorId is null.
• type is EVENT (external sources do not produce gigs).
• externalId is set to the source’s unique identifier.
• ticketUrl is populated for Ticketmaster events.
• externalUrl is populated for OSU events (the link field).

AI Enrichment

After ingestion, the system runs AI tagging on newly created external events to generate tags, category, and summary. On update (existing event with changed fields), tags are not regenerated — the original AI-generated tags are preserved. If AI tagging fails during initial ingestion, the event is still created with tags = [], summary = null, category = null.

Disappeared Events

If an external event disappears from the feed and its endAt has passed, it is marked COMPLETED. If an external event disappears but endAt is in the future (or null), no status change is made — the event remains in its current state. Events are never auto-deleted by ingestion.

Scenarios

S-ING-1: New OSU event ingested

GIVEN the OSU Content API returns an event with id "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=83306" and itemHash "abc123"
AND no Event exists with externalId "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=83306"
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN a new Event is created with source OSU_API, externalId set to the OSU id, creatorId null
AND the event's title, description, location, startAt, endAt, and externalUrl are mapped from the API response
AND AI tagging generates tags and category

S-ING-2: Existing event updated (hash changed)

GIVEN an Event exists with externalId "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=83306" and stored itemHash "abc123"
AND the OSU Content API now returns itemHash "def456" for the same id
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN the Event's fields are updated from the new API response
AND the stored itemHash is updated to "def456"

S-ING-2a: Existing event unchanged (hash match)

GIVEN an Event exists with externalId "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=83306" and stored itemHash "abc123"
AND the OSU Content API still returns itemHash "abc123" for the same id
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN no database write is performed for this event

S-ING-3: Ticketmaster event ingested

GIVEN the Ticketmaster API returns an event with id "tm_67890"
AND no Event exists with externalId "tm_67890"
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN a new Event is created with source TICKETMASTER, externalId "tm_67890"
AND ticketUrl is populated from the Ticketmaster data

S-ING-4: Stale external event handling

GIVEN an Event exists with externalId "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=10000" and source OSU_API
AND the OSU Content API no longer returns this event
AND the event's endAt has passed
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN the event's status is set to COMPLETED

S-ING-5: Dedup prevents duplicates

GIVEN an Event exists with externalId "tm_67890"
WHEN the ingestion cron processes Ticketmaster event with id "tm_67890" again
THEN no new Event is created
AND the existing Event's fields are updated if changed

S-ING-6: AI tagging failure does not block ingestion

GIVEN the AI service is unavailable
WHEN the ingestion cron creates a new external event
THEN the event is created with tags = [], summary = null, category = null

S-ING-7: Updated event preserves original tags

GIVEN event E was ingested with AI-generated tags ["music", "jazz"]
AND the external feed now has a new description for event E
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN event E's description is updated
AND event E's tags remain ["music", "jazz"]

S-ING-8: Disappeared event with future endAt unchanged

GIVEN an Event exists with externalId "https://studentlife.osu.edu/Events.aspx?e=99999" and endAt in the future
AND the OSU Content API no longer returns this event
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN the event's status is unchanged

S-ING-9: Only Columbus campus events are ingested

GIVEN the OSU Content API returns events with campus "columbus" and campus "lima"
WHEN the ingestion cron runs
THEN only events with campus "columbus" are ingested
AND events with other campus values are ignored