Harness Resilience

Circuit breakers, rate limiting, bulkheads, retry patterns, and fault tolerance analysis. Detects missing resilience patterns, evaluates failure modes, and recommends concrete configurations for production-grade fault tolerance.

When to Use

• When adding new external service integrations (APIs, databases, message queues) that need fault tolerance
• On PRs that modify service-to-service communication, HTTP clients, or middleware chains
• To audit existing resilience patterns for correctness, completeness, and observability
• NOT for load testing or capacity planning (use harness-load-testing)
• NOT for incident response after a failure has occurred (use harness-incident-response)
• NOT for security-focused rate limiting like DDoS protection (use harness-security-review)

Process

Phase 1: DETECT -- Identify Dependencies and Existing Patterns

1. Inventory external dependencies. Scan the codebase for outbound connections:

   • HTTP clients:

     axios

     ,

     fetch

     ,

     got

     ,

     HttpClient

     ,

     RestTemplate

     ,

     reqwest

   • Database connections: connection pool configs, ORM initialization, query builders
   • Message queues: RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS, Redis pub/sub client initialization
   • gRPC channels: proto client stubs, channel creation, dial options
   • Third-party SDKs: Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, AWS SDK calls

2. Map existing resilience patterns. For each dependency found, check for:

   • Circuit breakers:

     opossum

     ,

     cockatiel

     ,

     Polly

     ,

     resilience4j

     ,

     hystrix

     usage
   • Retry logic: exponential backoff, jitter, max attempts configuration
   • Timeouts: connection and request timeout settings
   • Rate limiters: token bucket, sliding window, or fixed window implementations
   • Bulkheads: thread pool isolation, semaphore limits, connection pool sizing
   • Fallbacks: cache-aside patterns, default values, degraded responses

3. Detect anti-patterns. Flag common resilience mistakes:

   • Unbounded retries without backoff or max attempts
   • Missing timeouts on HTTP clients or database queries
   • Circuit breaker without a fallback handler
   • Retry on non-idempotent operations (POST, DELETE without idempotency keys)
   • Rate limiter with no monitoring or alerting on limit hits

4. Build the dependency map. Produce a structured inventory:

   • Dependency name, type (HTTP, gRPC, database, queue), criticality (critical, degraded, optional)
   • Current resilience patterns applied (or "none")
   • Identified gaps and anti-patterns

---

Phase 2: ANALYZE -- Evaluate Failure Modes

1. Classify failure modes per dependency. For each external dependency:

   • Timeout: The dependency responds too slowly or not at all
   • Error burst: The dependency returns errors at a rate above normal
   • Partial degradation: The dependency responds but with reduced functionality
   • Total outage: The dependency is completely unreachable
   • Data inconsistency: The dependency returns stale or incorrect data

2. Assess blast radius. For each failure mode:

   • Which features become unavailable?
   • Which downstream services are affected?
   • What is the user-visible impact?
   • Can the system continue to serve other requests?

3. Evaluate current coverage. Score each dependency on resilience coverage:

   • Full: Circuit breaker + retry + timeout + fallback + monitoring
   • Partial: Some patterns present but gaps exist (e.g., retry without circuit breaker)
   • None: No resilience patterns applied

4. Prioritize gaps by risk. Combine criticality and coverage:

   • Critical dependency with no resilience = P0 (immediate)
   • Critical dependency with partial resilience = P1 (next sprint)
   • Optional dependency with no resilience = P2 (backlog)
   • Any dependency with anti-patterns = P0 (anti-patterns are active risks)

5. Check observability. For existing patterns, verify they emit metrics:

   • Circuit breaker state changes (open/half-open/closed)
   • Retry attempt counts and final outcomes
   • Rate limiter rejection counts
   • Timeout occurrences

---

Phase 3: DESIGN -- Recommend Resilience Patterns

1. Select patterns per dependency. Based on the failure mode analysis:

   • HTTP APIs: Circuit breaker (opossum/cockatiel) + exponential backoff with jitter + request timeout + fallback
   • Databases: Connection pool sizing + query timeout + read replica fallback + bulkhead isolation
   • Message queues: Dead letter queue + retry with backoff + idempotent consumers + circuit breaker on publish
   • gRPC services: Deadline propagation + retry policy + load balancing + circuit breaker

2. Provide concrete configurations. For each recommended pattern, specify:

   • Library and version to use
   • Configuration values with rationale (e.g., "timeout: 3000ms based on p99 latency of 1200ms with 2.5x headroom")
   • Threshold values for circuit breakers (failure rate, sample window, reset timeout)
   • Retry parameters (max attempts, base delay, max delay, jitter factor)
   • Rate limits (requests per window, window size, burst allowance)

3. Design fallback strategies. For each critical dependency:

   • Cache fallback: Serve stale data from Redis/memory cache with a staleness indicator
   • Default fallback: Return a safe default value with a degraded flag
   • Queue fallback: Accept the request and process it asynchronously when the dependency recovers
   • Feature flag fallback: Disable the feature entirely via feature flag

4. Generate implementation templates. Produce code snippets for:

   • Circuit breaker wrapping an existing HTTP client
   • Retry middleware with exponential backoff and jitter
   • Rate limiter middleware for Express/Fastify/NestJS
   • Bulkhead pattern using semaphore or connection pool limits

5. Define health check contracts. Specify how each dependency should be health-checked:

   • Endpoint or query to use for liveness check
   • Timeout for the health check itself
   • Frequency and failure threshold before marking unhealthy

---

Phase 4: VALIDATE -- Verify Implementation and Observability

1. Check pattern correctness. For each implemented pattern:

   • Circuit breaker: Verify threshold configuration, half-open behavior, and reset timeout
   • Retry: Verify idempotency of retried operations, backoff curve, and max attempts
   • Timeout: Verify timeout values are set on both client and server sides
   • Rate limiter: Verify limit values, window type, and rejection response format

2. Verify test coverage. Check that resilience patterns are tested:

   • Circuit breaker tests: closed-to-open transition, open rejection, half-open recovery
   • Retry tests: successful retry, max attempts exhaustion, non-retryable error bypass
   • Timeout tests: timeout triggers fallback, timeout does not leak connections
   • Rate limiter tests: under-limit passes, at-limit rejects, window reset behavior

3. Verify observability. Confirm that metrics are emitted:

   • Check for Prometheus counters/histograms or StatsD calls on pattern events
   • Verify structured logging includes circuit breaker state, retry attempt number, and rate limit headers
   • Confirm dashboard or alert configurations reference the new metrics

4. Produce the resilience report. Output a summary:

   • Number of dependencies analyzed
   • Coverage before and after (percentage with full/partial/none resilience)
   • Anti-patterns found and resolved
   • Remaining gaps with priority and recommended timeline

5. Run integration verification. If integration tests exist:

   • Execute tests that exercise the resilience patterns (chaos test stubs, fault injection)
   • Verify graceful degradation under simulated failure conditions
   • Confirm that fallbacks produce acceptable user-facing responses

---

Harness Integration

• harness skill run harness-resilience

  -- Primary CLI entry point. Runs all four phases.

• harness validate

  -- Run after implementing recommended patterns to verify project integrity.

• harness check-deps

  -- Verify that new resilience libraries are properly declared and within boundary rules.

• emit_interaction

  -- Used at pattern selection (checkpoint:decision) when multiple valid patterns exist and trade-offs require human judgment.

• Glob

  -- Discover HTTP clients, middleware chains, and existing resilience pattern files.

• Grep

  -- Search for timeout configurations, retry logic, circuit breaker initialization, and anti-patterns.

• Write

  -- Generate implementation templates and resilience configuration files.

• Edit

  -- Add resilience wrappers to existing service clients.

Success Criteria

• All external dependencies are inventoried with their resilience coverage level
• Anti-patterns are identified with specific file locations and line numbers
• Recommendations include concrete library versions and configuration values, not just pattern names
• Fallback strategies are defined for every critical dependency
• Implementation templates compile and follow the project's existing code style
• Observability is addressed: every pattern emits metrics or structured logs

Examples

Example: Express.js API with Stripe and PostgreSQL

Phase 1: DETECT
  Dependencies found:
    - Stripe API (HTTP, critical): axios client in src/payments/stripe-client.ts
      Resilience: timeout=5000ms, no retry, no circuit breaker, no fallback
    - PostgreSQL (database, critical): pg pool in src/db/pool.ts
      Resilience: pool max=20, no query timeout, no read replica fallback
    - SendGrid (HTTP, optional): @sendgrid/mail in src/notifications/email.ts
      Resilience: none

  Anti-patterns:
    - src/payments/stripe-client.ts:45 — retry on POST /charges without idempotency key
    - src/db/pool.ts — no statement_timeout configured

Phase 2: ANALYZE
  Stripe failure modes:
    - Timeout: Payment page hangs, user retries, duplicate charges possible
    - Outage: All payments fail, revenue impact immediate
    - Blast radius: checkout flow, subscription renewal, refund processing
  Risk: P0 (critical + partial coverage + anti-pattern)

Phase 3: DESIGN
  Stripe recommendations:
    - Add opossum circuit breaker: failureThreshold=50%, resetTimeout=30s
    - Add idempotency key to all Stripe charge requests
    - Set timeout to 8000ms (Stripe p99 is ~3s, 2.5x headroom)
    - Fallback: queue payment for async retry via Bull queue
  PostgreSQL recommendations:
    - Set statement_timeout=5000 in pool config
    - Add pg-pool error handler with connection retry
    - Configure read replica for GET endpoints via pgBouncer

Phase 4: VALIDATE
  Resilience coverage: 33% -> 100% (3/3 dependencies covered)
  Anti-patterns resolved: 2/2
  Tests needed: circuit breaker state transitions, idempotency key generation

Example: NestJS Microservices with gRPC and Redis

Phase 1: DETECT
  Dependencies found:
    - user-service (gRPC, critical): @grpc/grpc-js in src/clients/user.client.ts
      Resilience: deadline=5s, no retry, no circuit breaker
    - inventory-service (gRPC, critical): no resilience configured
    - Redis (cache, degraded): ioredis in src/cache/redis.ts
      Resilience: reconnectOnError, no bulkhead, no fallback

Phase 2: ANALYZE
  inventory-service outage:
    - Product pages return 503, search results empty
    - Blast radius: catalog, search, cart validation
    - Risk: P0 (critical + no coverage)

Phase 3: DESIGN
  inventory-service recommendations:
    - Add cockatiel circuit breaker with ConsecutiveBreaker(5)
    - Add retry with exponentialBackoff(1000, 2) maxAttempts=3
    - Add deadline propagation from gateway timeout
    - Fallback: serve cached inventory from Redis with staleness header
  Redis recommendations:
    - Add bulkhead: maxPoolSize=50, separate pools for cache vs sessions
    - Add fallback: in-memory LRU cache (lru-cache, max 1000 items)
    - Monitor: emit redis.command.duration histogram

Phase 4: VALIDATE
  Coverage: 33% -> 100%
  Tests verified: gRPC circuit breaker opens after 5 failures,
    Redis fallback serves from LRU when Redis is down

Rationalizations to Reject

Rationalization	Reality
"That third-party API has 99.99% uptime — we don't need a circuit breaker"	99.99% uptime means 52 minutes of downtime per year. That downtime will not occur as one predictable window — it will happen as degraded responses and timeouts during a traffic spike. Without a circuit breaker, every caller blocks for the full timeout duration, exhausting thread pools and cascading across the system.
"We have retry logic, so failures are handled"	Retry logic without a circuit breaker amplifies failures. When the downstream service is degraded, retries multiply the load on an already struggling system. Circuit breakers and retries are complementary controls, not alternatives.
"The fallback adds complexity — we'll add it if the circuit breaker actually opens"	A circuit breaker without a fallback is a different kind of failure mode, not resilience. When the circuit opens, users see an error instead of a degraded-but-functional experience. Fallbacks must be designed and tested before the circuit ever opens in production.
"Our database connection pool is 100 connections — that's plenty"	Connection pool size without query timeouts means slow queries hold connections indefinitely. A single slow query spike can exhaust the pool, causing every subsequent request to wait. Pool sizing and query timeouts are both required.
"The service is internal — it doesn't need rate limiting"	Internal services are often called by automated processes, CI pipelines, and batch jobs that can spike traffic in ways user-facing services do not. Missing rate limiting on internal services is a common cause of self-inflicted outages during deployments and data migrations.

Gates

• No retry on non-idempotent operations without idempotency keys. Retrying a POST or DELETE that lacks an idempotency mechanism can cause data duplication or data loss. This is a blocking finding. The operation must be made idempotent before retry logic is added.
• No circuit breaker without a fallback. A circuit breaker that opens and returns a raw error to the user is not resilience -- it is a different kind of failure. Every circuit breaker must have a defined fallback behavior (cache, default, queue, or feature flag).
• No unbounded retries. Retry logic must have a max attempt limit and use exponential backoff with jitter. Unbounded retries with fixed delays cause thundering herd problems and amplify failures.
• No resilience pattern without observability. A circuit breaker that opens silently is invisible to operations. Every pattern must emit metrics or structured logs that can trigger alerts.

Escalation

• When a dependency has no documentation on failure behavior: Report: "The [dependency] has no documented error codes or failure modes. Recommend contacting the provider for SLA details, or instrumenting the client to collect failure statistics over a 2-week baseline period."
• When resilience patterns conflict with latency requirements: Adding retries and circuit breakers increases tail latency. Report: "The recommended retry configuration adds up to [N]ms to worst-case latency. If the latency budget is [M]ms, consider reducing max attempts or using a hedged request pattern instead."
• When the team has no experience with the recommended library: Report: "The team has not used [library] before. Recommend starting with a single non-critical dependency as a pilot, with a production bake time of 2 weeks before rolling out to critical paths."
• When existing resilience patterns use a different library than recommended: Do not recommend switching libraries mid-project. Report: "The project already uses [existing library] for resilience. Recommend continuing with [existing library] for consistency, adapting the configuration recommendations to its API."