fix: return 202 for notifications with stale sessions, warn on updateTable columns (#654)

**Issue #654 (critical):** handleRequest() returned HTTP 400 for JSON-RPC
notifications with stale/expired session IDs. Per JSON-RPC 2.0 spec,
notifications don't expect responses. Returning 400 caused Claude's proxy
to interpret the connection as broken, triggering reconnection storms
(930 errors/day, 216 users affected).

Fix: Added isJsonRpcNotification() helper that detects single and batch
notifications (messages with method but no id field). Path C in
handleRequest() now returns 202 Accepted for notifications with stale
sessions instead of 400. Also added TOCTOU null guard in Path B.

**Issue 1 (medium):** updateTable silently accepted columns parameter
via the shared MCP tool schema. Zod stripped it but gave no feedback.

Fix: handleUpdateTable now detects columns in raw args and appends a
warning to the response. Tool schema descriptions clarified that columns
are for createTable only and schema is immutable after creation.

Conceived by Romuald Członkowski - https://www.aiadvisors.pl/en

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

tests/unit/http-server-session-management.test.ts

@@ -219,6 +219,7 @@ describe('HTTP Server Session Management', () => {
       status: vi.fn().mockReturnThis(),
       json: vi.fn().mockReturnThis(),
       send: vi.fn().mockReturnThis(),
+      end: vi.fn().mockReturnThis(),
       setHeader: vi.fn((key: string, value: string) => {
         headers[key.toLowerCase()] = value;
       }),
@@ -1170,7 +1171,7 @@ describe('HTTP Server Session Management', () => {
 
     it('should show legacy SSE session when present', async () => {
       server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
-      
+
       // Mock legacy session
       const mockSession = {
         sessionId: 'sse-session-123',
@@ -1180,10 +1181,111 @@ describe('HTTP Server Session Management', () => {
       (server as any).session = mockSession;
 
       const sessionInfo = server.getSessionInfo();
-      
+
       expect(sessionInfo.active).toBe(true);
       expect(sessionInfo.sessionId).toBe('sse-session-123');
       expect(sessionInfo.age).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(0);
     });
   });
+
+  describe('Notification handling for stale sessions (#654)', () => {
+    beforeEach(() => {
+      // Re-apply mockImplementation after vi.clearAllMocks() resets it
+      mockConsoleManager.wrapOperation.mockImplementation(async (fn: () => Promise<any>) => {
+        return await fn();
+      });
+    });
+
+    it('should return 202 for notification with stale session ID', async () => {
+      server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
+
+      const { req, res } = createMockReqRes();
+
+      req.headers = { 'mcp-session-id': 'stale-session-that-does-not-exist' };
+      req.method = 'POST';
+      req.body = {
+        jsonrpc: '2.0',
+        method: 'notifications/initialized',
+      };
+
+      await server.handleRequest(req as any, res as any);
+
+      expect(res.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(202);
+      expect(res.end).toHaveBeenCalled();
+    });
+
+    it('should return 202 for notification batch with stale session ID', async () => {
+      server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
+
+      const { req, res } = createMockReqRes();
+
+      req.headers = { 'mcp-session-id': 'stale-session-that-does-not-exist' };
+      req.method = 'POST';
+      req.body = [
+        { jsonrpc: '2.0', method: 'notifications/initialized' },
+        { jsonrpc: '2.0', method: 'notifications/cancelled' },
+      ];
+
+      await server.handleRequest(req as any, res as any);
+
+      expect(res.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(202);
+      expect(res.end).toHaveBeenCalled();
+    });
+
+    it('should return 400 for request (with id) with stale session ID', async () => {
+      server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
+
+      const { req, res } = createMockReqRes();
+      req.headers = { 'mcp-session-id': 'stale-session-that-does-not-exist' };
+      req.method = 'POST';
+      req.body = {
+        jsonrpc: '2.0',
+        method: 'tools/call',
+        params: { name: 'search_nodes', arguments: { query: 'http' } },
+        id: 42,
+      };
+
+      await server.handleRequest(req as any, res as any);
+
+      expect(res.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(400);
+      expect(res.json).toHaveBeenCalledWith(expect.objectContaining({
+        error: expect.objectContaining({
+          message: 'Bad Request: Session not found or expired',
+        }),
+      }));
+    });
+
+    it('should return 202 for notification with no session ID', async () => {
+      server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
+
+      const { req, res } = createMockReqRes();
+
+      req.method = 'POST';
+      req.body = {
+        jsonrpc: '2.0',
+        method: 'notifications/cancelled',
+      };
+
+      await server.handleRequest(req as any, res as any);
+
+      expect(res.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(202);
+      expect(res.end).toHaveBeenCalled();
+    });
+
+    it('should return 400 for request with no session ID and not initialize', async () => {
+      server = new SingleSessionHTTPServer();
+
+      const { req, res } = createMockReqRes();
+      req.method = 'POST';
+      req.body = {
+        jsonrpc: '2.0',
+        method: 'tools/list',
+        id: 1,
+      };
+
+      await server.handleRequest(req as any, res as any);
+
+      expect(res.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(400);
+    });
+  });
 });

tests/unit/mcp/handlers-manage-datatable.test.ts

@@ -363,6 +363,22 @@ describe('Data Table Handlers (n8n_manage_datatable)', () => {
       expect(result.success).toBe(false);
       expect(result.error).toBe('Update failed');
     });
+
+    it('should warn when columns parameter is passed', async () => {
+      const updatedTable = { id: 'dt-1', name: 'Renamed' };
+      mockApiClient.updateDataTable.mockResolvedValue(updatedTable);
+
+      const result = await handlers.handleUpdateTable({
+        tableId: 'dt-1',
+        name: 'Renamed',
+        columns: [{ name: 'phone', type: 'string' }],
+      });
+
+      expect(result.success).toBe(true);
+      expect(result.message).toContain('columns parameter was ignored');
+      expect(result.message).toContain('immutable after creation');
+      expect(mockApiClient.updateDataTable).toHaveBeenCalledWith('dt-1', { name: 'Renamed' });
+    });
   });
 
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