Building Reliable Pagination for TikTok's Unstable API

TikTok's public endpoints often return inconsistent page sizes, duplicate items, or missing cursors, causing production issues. A developer created a pagination layer that enforces a strict contract: count matches returned records, cursors are opaque, and pages never contain duplicates. The solution uses a reusable Node.js client that treats cursor values as server-owned state to avoid skipping or repeating data.