Onenote upgrade migration

OneNote Upgrade & Migration

Overview

Microsoft shipped three breaking changes to OneNote integrations in under two years: webhook decommissioning (June 2023), search endpoint deprecation (April 2024), and app-only auth deprecation (March 2025). The Graph SDK itself had breaking changes between v5 and v6. This skill provides exact migration diffs, verification steps, and rollback strategies for each breaking change.

Prerequisites

• Existing OneNote integration using Graph API
• Node.js 18+ (TypeScript SDK) or Python 3.10+ (Python SDK)
• Git for branch-based migration with rollback capability
• Azure portal access for app registration changes (auth migration)

Instructions

Breaking Changes Timeline

Date	Change	Impact
June 16, 2023	Webhooks decommissioned	Subscription notifications stop
April 2024	Search endpoint deprecated	/pages?search= returns 404
March 31, 2025	App-only auth deprecated	ClientSecretCredential returns 403

Migration 1: App-Only to Delegated Auth

Before (broken after March 2025):

// OLD — ClientSecretCredential (DEPRECATED for OneNote)
import { ClientSecretCredential } from "@azure/identity";
const credential = new ClientSecretCredential(TENANT_ID, CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET);
const authProvider = new TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider(credential, {
  scopes: ["https://graph.microsoft.com/.default"],
});

After:

// NEW — DeviceCodeCredential (required)
import { DeviceCodeCredential } from "@azure/identity";
const credential = new DeviceCodeCredential({
  clientId: CLIENT_ID, tenantId: TENANT_ID,
  userPromptCallback: (info) =>
    console.log(`Open ${info.verificationUri} and enter code: ${info.userCode}`),
});
const authProvider = new TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider(credential, {
  scopes: ["Notes.Read", "Notes.ReadWrite"],  // Explicit, not .default
});
const client = Client.initWithMiddleware({ authProvider });

Python equivalent:

# OLD: credential = ClientSecretCredential(tenant_id, client_id, client_secret)
# NEW:
from azure.identity import DeviceCodeCredential
credential = DeviceCodeCredential(client_id=CLIENT_ID, tenant_id=TENANT_ID)

Required Azure portal changes: Add "Mobile and desktop applications" platform with http://localhost redirect URI to your app registration.

Migration 2: Webhooks to Polling

// OLD — Webhook subscription (DECOMMISSIONED June 2023)
// await client.api("/subscriptions").post({ resource: "/me/onenote/pages", ... });

// NEW — Polling with delta link tracking
async function pollForChanges(client: any, deltaLink: string | null) {
  const endpoint = deltaLink || "/me/onenote/notebooks";
  const response = await client.api(endpoint)
    .header("Prefer", "odata.track-changes").get();

  for (const item of response.value || []) {
    await processChange(item);
  }
  return response["@odata.deltaLink"] || deltaLink;
}

// Poll every 60s (stays under 600 req/60s per-user rate limit)
let deltaLink: string | null = null;
setInterval(async () => {
  try { deltaLink = await pollForChanges(client, deltaLink); }
  catch (err: any) {
    if (err?.statusCode === 429) {
      console.warn(`Rate limited. Retry after ${err.headers?.["retry-after"] ?? 30}s`);
    }
  }
}, 60_000);

Migration 3: Search Endpoint to OData Filters

// OLD — Search endpoint (DEPRECATED April 2024)
// const results = await client.api("/me/onenote/pages").query({ search: "term" }).get();

// NEW — OData filter for title, client-side for content
async function searchPages(client: any, query: string) {
  // Server-side title filter
  const titleMatches = await client.api("/me/onenote/pages")
    .filter(`contains(title,'${query.replace(/'/g, "''")}')`)
    .top(50).orderby("lastModifiedDateTime desc").get();

  // Client-side content search (Graph no longer supports full-text)
  const contentMatches: any[] = [];
  const pages = await client.api("/me/onenote/pages").top(100)
    .orderby("lastModifiedDateTime desc").get();
  for (const page of pages.value) {
    const html = await client.api(`/me/onenote/pages/${page.id}/content`).get();
    if (html.replace(/<[^>]+>/g, "").toLowerCase().includes(query.toLowerCase())) {
      contentMatches.push(page);
    }
  }

  // Deduplicate
  const seen = new Set(titleMatches.value.map((p: any) => p.id));
  return [...titleMatches.value, ...contentMatches.filter((m) => !seen.has(m.id))];
}

Migration 4: Graph SDK v5 to v6 (TypeScript)

// SDK v5 — callback-based auth (REMOVED in v6)
const client = Client.init({
  authProvider: (done) => done(null, accessToken),
});

// SDK v6 — middleware-based auth (REQUIRED)
import { TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider } from
  "@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client/authProviders/azureTokenCredentials";
const authProvider = new TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider(credential, {
  scopes: ["Notes.Read", "Notes.ReadWrite"],
});
const client = Client.initWithMiddleware({ authProvider });

Migration Checklists

Auth migration: Remove AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET from env/secrets. Add redirect URI in Azure portal. Replace .default with explicit scopes. Verify GET /me/onenote/notebooks returns 200.

SDK upgrade: Update @microsoft/microsoft-graph-client to v6+. Replace Client.init() with Client.initWithMiddleware(). Remove callback auth providers. Run full test suite.

Search migration: Replace /pages?search= with OData $filter. Add client-side content search fallback. Performance test: client-side search under 2s for 100 pages.

Feature Detection at Runtime

export function requiresDelegatedAuth(): boolean { return true; } // Since March 2025
export function isSearchEndpointAvailable(): boolean { return false; } // Since April 2024
export function isWebhookAvailable(): boolean { return false; } // Since June 2023

Rollback Strategy

Use a feature flag for gradual auth migration:

const useDelegated = process.env.ONENOTE_AUTH_MODE !== "legacy";
const credential = useDelegated
  ? new DeviceCodeCredential({ clientId, tenantId })
  : new ClientSecretCredential(tenantId, clientId, clientSecret); // Legacy fallback

Output

• Auth migration: ClientSecretCredential to DeviceCodeCredential with code diff
• Webhook migration: subscription API to polling with delta queries
• Search migration: deprecated endpoint to OData filters + client-side search
• SDK v5 to v6: Client.init() to Client.initWithMiddleware()
• Migration checklists and feature detection module
• Rollback strategy with feature flag pattern

Error Handling

Migration Error	Cause	Fix
403 Forbidden after auth migration	Missing redirect URI	Add http://localhost to "Mobile and desktop" platform in Azure portal
InvalidScope on token request	Using .default with delegated auth	Use explicit scopes: Notes.Read, Notes.ReadWrite
TypeError: Client.init is not a function	SDK v6 removed Client.init	Use Client.initWithMiddleware
404 on search endpoint	Removed April 2024	Use OData $filter + client-side content search
400 on subscription create	Webhooks decommissioned June 2023	Switch to polling with delta queries

Examples

# Check which migrations your codebase needs
grep -r "ClientSecretCredential" src/ --include="*.ts" --include="*.py"
grep -r "search=" src/ --include="*.ts" --include="*.py"
grep -r "/subscriptions" src/ --include="*.ts" --include="*.py"
grep -r "Client.init(" src/ --include="*.ts"

// Smoke test after auth migration
const client = getGraphClient();
const nb = await client.api("/me/onenote/notebooks").top(1).get();
console.log("Auth migration OK:", nb.value.length, "notebooks");

Resources

• OneNote API Overview
• Graph API Known Issues
• Azure App Registration
• MSAL Python
• OneNote Error Codes

Next Steps

• Set up CI for migrated code with onenote-ci-integration
• Debug migration issues with onenote-debug-bundle
• Review security after migration with onenote-security-basics