I’m running into some odd Airtable behavior with a hidden primary field and I can’t find any documentation that explains it. Hoping someone here has insight.

• Table: PHPTO Form Responses

• Primary field: PHPTO Pitch Name (single line text)

• Form: PHPTO Pitch Form Responses

• On the form, the primary field was present but hidden.

• Both Member Name and Album Title are required fields.

• Member Name was created first in the schema.

Here’s the behavior:

• When a record is created from the form, the record history shows that PHPTO Pitch Name is set immediately at creation.

• Instead of staying blank, Airtable always sets it equal to the Album Title.

• This happens even though Member Name is also required and appears first in the schema.

What I know:

• Airtable docs confirm that hidden fields still submit values (prefilling hidden fields).

• Airtable defines the primary as the “short, unique representation” of each record (primary field doc).

• But nowhere can I find why Airtable prefers Album Title over Member Name when both are required, single-line text, and available at creation.

Questions:

1. Is this fallback behavior documented anywhere?

2. Why would Album Title win out over Member Name?

3. Is there a way to explicitly control this (formula or automation) instead of Airtable auto-filling the hidden primary?

Screenshots show that Pitch Name and Album Title are written at the same time during record creation, so it’s not an automation or manual update.

Thanks in advance — I’d love to understand if this is a known Airtable heuristic or just undocumented behavior.