Turned out our backend team just had a graphql type def that was wrong. That resulted in a nullified value, and the server logic following that treats a null value for the timestamp to mean the task should be completed now. None of this was reflected in the UI however.

So all in all, my bug wasn't that exciting, but if you think about the early chaotic days of a startup, there are often nuances in dealing with date and time that don't get thought through, particularly with newer developers being pushed or pushing themselves to get things launched. For example, if you are doing all of your testing locally, you might not find out until you get a user or customer in another time zone that, hey, we should have thought about that.

Bottom line is, and I think this is really what I was thinking this morning -- I would never sink so much time into drawing conclusions with the early data of a startup like this. Life is too short. If I am going to spend that much time on something it's going to need to be a less risky investment.