[rubenvdlinde]

What changed

MetadataService reads as named steps instead of seven branchy methods:

• updateFieldDefinition refuses a key rename, loads the field and applies patchLabel, patchSortOrder, patchRequired and patchOptions in the original order before stamping and saving.
• setMetadataForDashboard resolves each key with fieldForKey (empty / unknown key messages unchanged), validates the value and hands it to a new MetadataValueWriter, a small final run object built for this one write, which clears the row of an empty optional value or upserts it.
• extractUuid → entityUuid / rowUuid; matchesNumberRange → withinNumberRange; matchesDateRange → withinDateRange (isOnOrAfter, isOnOrBefore); assertOptionsShape → isSelectType; assertSelectOptions → assertOptionEntries.

Behaviour is unchanged: the same validation messages in the same precedence, the same deletes and upserts in the same order, the same filter matches.

Characterisation tests

tests/Unit/Service/MetadataServiceBranchesTest.php was committed first, against the old code, and passes before and after: a rename refused before the field is read, every patch key (and an ignored one), the required casting, the invalid patches with their exact messages and order (label before options, scalar / null / empty / non-string / empty-string options, options on a text field), the empty and unknown metadata keys, the clear-versus-upsert sequence across optional, absent, required and integer keys, the number and date range criteria (each bound alone, both, empty range, exact, non-numeric) and UUID lookup on entities, null-UUID entities, plain objects and rows.

What ran

• vendor/bin/phpunit -c phpunit.xml --no-coverage tests/Unit: 2776 tests OK (13 skipped, as on development).
• vendor/bin/phpcs and vendor/bin/phpstan analyse on the touched lib files: clean.
• vendor/bin/phpmd on MetadataService: one new finding, TooManyMethods (29 methods against a limit of 25), the cost of turning long methods into named private steps; composer phpmd is already red on development for other classes.

Figures (touched files lib/Service/MetadataService.php, lib/Service/MetadataValueWriter.php)

	before	after
units over complexity 5	7 units, 160 lines	0
units over 15 lines of code	10 units, 256 lines	6 units, 136 lines (untouched methods)
units over 2 parameters	3 units, 61 lines	3 units, 61 lines

MetadataValueWriter depends on MetadataValueMapper (already used by MetadataService) and MetadataField; nothing else depends on it but MetadataService. App-wide: unit complexity 4.02 → 4.10, unit size 3.40 → 3.42, module coupling unchanged.

Maintainability floor: compare against development holds.

AI-assisted: prepared with Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5); reviewed by a maintainer before merge.

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Generated by Claude Code