Negative engagement triggers sequence exit

GDPR Art. 21 grants the right to object to processing; GDPR Art. 17 grants the right to erasure; CAN-SPAM Act Sec. 5 requires honoring opt-out requests within 10 business days; CCPA Sec. 1798.120 provides the right to opt out of sale. Each of these rights is violated when an unsubscribe updates only the contacts table while active sequence enrollments continue executing. The enrollment record is a separate processing instruction — the system knows it should send the next email and will do so unless the enrollment is explicitly terminated. Updating a contact field is not enough: pending queue jobs already scheduled will execute regardless of any contact-level flag unless the jobs themselves are cancelled.

Handle all three negative signal types in a single handleNegativeSignal function wired to your ESP's event webhooks. The function must update the contact, exit all active enrollments, and cancel pending jobs — in that order.

async function handleNegativeSignal(
  contactId: string,
  signal: 'unsubscribe' | 'hard_bounce' | 'spam_complaint'
) {
  await db.contact.update({
    where: { id: contactId },
    data: { subscribed: false, suppressedAt: new Date(), suppressionReason: signal }
  })

  await db.contactSequence.updateMany({
    where: { contactId, status: { in: ['active', 'paused'] } },
    data: { status: 'opted_out', exitedAt: new Date() }
  })

  await cancelAllPendingJobsForContact(contactId)
}

Verify that your ESP is configured to deliver unsubscribe, hard bounce, and spam complaint webhooks to your handler. All three must trigger handleNegativeSignal — a missing spam complaint handler alone is a compliance gap.