What's the correct way to change sortOrder?

[ospfranco]

Hi! We built an app that integrates with linear, inside we import user's org roadmap/projects, we would like to allow the user to change the order of the project directly from our app instead of having to go to Linear, so I'm trying to figure out how does the sortOrder field works, I can see it is a float, but what is the logic behind it?

if I want to move a project (p1) above another one (p2) I could just do sortOrder - 1 (p1.sortOrder = p2.sortOrder -1) but I guess that will come back and bite me in the ass at some point

Any pointers would be really appreciated

[eldh]

That will work the first time you do it, but you'll run into problem the second time you try to place something above p2. It's better to place the project between two other items, if possible.

[ospfranco]

right, so the question is:

What's the right way to calculate this value?

from my testing when I move a project in the linear app not only that value changes, but it seems the entire list is somehow re-ordered? If you could at least share the high-level logic I could implement something on my own