Why should you care?

Hundreds of procs become a mess without conventions — support teams cannot find or trust them.

See it live — copy this example

Run in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Azure Data Studio.

USE DataVerse;
CREATE OR ALTER PROCEDURE dbo.usp_TransferPreview
    @FromAccountId INT,
    @ToAccountId INT,
    @Amount DECIMAL(18,2)
AS
BEGIN
    SET NOCOUNT ON;
    SET XACT_ABORT ON;
    BEGIN TRY
        IF @Amount <= 0 THROW 50001, 'Amount must be positive.', 1;
        SELECT a.AccountId, a.Balance
        FROM dbo.Accounts AS a
        WHERE a.AccountId IN (@FromAccountId, @ToAccountId);
        -- Real transfer would BEGIN TRAN / UPDATE / COMMIT in banking lesson
    END TRY
    BEGIN CATCH
        THROW;
    END CATCH
END

What happened?

• Naming usp_ states intent.
• XACT_ABORT helps batch abort on errors.
• THROW validates amount.
• Preview only reads balances — mutation comes in the banking transaction lesson.

Practice next

1. Create usp_TransferPreview and execute it.
2. Pass @Amount = 0 and confirm THROW.
3. Agree team naming: usp_VerbNoun.
4. Add a @RequestedBy SYSNAME parameter for audit later.
5. Return a ResultCode column pattern used by your API.

Remember

Conventions beat clever one-offs. Validate inputs; surface errors. Separate preview/read from money movement.

Proc standards doc

DataVerse team enforces usp_ naming + TRY/CATCH template.

Outcome: On-call engineers can navigate procedures under pressure.