resilience

Activate When

• /godmode:resilience, "circuit breaker", "retry"
• "rate limiting", "bulkhead", "graceful degradation"
• "health check", "timeout", "what if service is down"
• Ship skill needs resilience validation

Workflow

1. Resilience Assessment

grep -r "circuitBreaker\|CircuitBreaker\|opossum\|gobreaker" \
  --include="*.ts" --include="*.js" --include="*.go" \
  -l 2>/dev/null
grep -r "retry\|backoff\|Retry" \
  --include="*.ts" --include="*.go" -l 2>/dev/null

Evaluate: circuit breakers, retries, timeouts, bulkheads, rate limits, fallbacks, health checks.

2. Circuit Breaker

States: CLOSED -> OPEN (on threshold) -> HALF-OPEN (after cooldown) -> test one request -> CLOSED/OPEN.

Config per dependency:
  Failure threshold: 5 failures in 30s
  Half-open timeout: 30s
  Success threshold: 3 (to close from half-open)
  Monitored exceptions: 5xx, timeout, connection error
  Fallback: cached data | default | error

IF no circuit breaker on external call: add one. IF circuit opens too often: tune threshold up.

3. Retry Strategy

Formula: min(base_ms * 2^attempt + jitter, max_ms)
Retryable: network timeout, 5xx, DB connection, 429
Non-retryable: 4xx validation, auth, deserialization
Max attempts: 3 (default), 5 (critical operations)

NEVER retry non-idempotent operations without idempotency key. ALWAYS add jitter to prevent thundering herd.

4. Bulkhead Pattern

Isolate failure domains. Separate connection pools or semaphores per dependency. One slow dependency must not exhaust all resources.

Config: max concurrent per dependency
  Payment API: 20 concurrent, queue 10
  Email service: 10 concurrent, queue 5
  Search: 30 concurrent, queue 20

5. Rate Limiting

Token bucket for burst tolerance. Sliding window counter for steady limits. See /godmode:ratelimit for full implementation.

6. Graceful Degradation

Define fallback per dependency:

Recommendation engine down -> show popular items
Search down -> show cached results + apology
Payment down -> queue order, process later
Analytics down -> skip tracking silently

Levels: NORMAL -> DEGRADED -> MINIMAL -> MAINTENANCE.

7. Health Checks

• Liveness: is process alive? (restart if fail) Internal only -- no external deps.
• Readiness: can accept traffic? (remove from LB) Check DB, cache, critical deps.
• Startup: initialization complete? (delay probes)

livenessProbe:
  httpGet: { path: /health/live, port: 8080 }
  periodSeconds: 10
  failureThreshold: 3
readinessProbe:
  httpGet: { path: /health/ready, port: 8080 }
  periodSeconds: 5
  failureThreshold: 2

8. Timeout Management

Client request: 30s total
  -> API gateway: 25s
    -> Service call: 5s (connect 1s + read 4s)
    -> DB query: 3s
    -> External API: 10s

Each layer timeout < parent timeout. Use timeout budget: pass remaining time downstream.

9. Verification

[ ] Circuit breaker on all external deps
[ ] Retry with exponential backoff + jitter
[ ] Bulkhead isolation between deps
[ ] Fallback for every circuit breaker
[ ] Health checks (liveness + readiness)
[ ] Timeouts on all calls (connect + read)
[ ] Rate limiting at API boundary

Quality Targets

• Circuit breaker: open after >50% error rate in 10s window
• Retry budget: <=3 attempts with exponential backoff
• Timeout: <5s for downstream service calls
• Bulkhead: <100 concurrent requests per downstream service

Hard Rules

1. NEVER retry non-idempotent without idempotency key.
2. EVERY retry: exponential backoff WITH jitter.
3. EVERY external call: timeout (connect + read).
4. NEVER cascade failures (bulkhead isolation).
5. Health liveness: NEVER depend on external services.
6. ALWAYS define fallback for circuit breakers.
7. Timeout per layer < parent layer timeout.

TSV Logging

Append .godmode/resilience-results.tsv:

timestamp	pattern	target	dependency	config	test_result	status

Keep/Discard

KEEP if: dependency failure triggers graceful
  degradation AND circuit opens AND fallback works.
DISCARD if: failure cascades OR no fallback
  OR timeout not configured.

Stop Conditions

STOP when ALL of:
  - All critical deps have circuit breakers
  - All retries use backoff + jitter
  - All calls have timeouts
  - All circuit breakers have fallbacks
  - Verification checklist passes

Autonomous Operation

On failure: git reset --hard HEAD~1. Never pause.

Error Recovery

Failure	Action
Circuit never opens	Check threshold, include timeouts
Retry storm	Add backoff+jitter, circuit breaker first
Stale fallback data	Set max staleness, alert on primary
Bulkhead rejects too many	Tune pool size, check downstream