Adobe Reliability Patterns

Overview

Production-grade reliability patterns for Adobe API integrations. Adobe APIs present unique challenges: IMS tokens expire after 24h, Firefly/Photoshop jobs are async with variable completion times, and rate limits vary by API. These patterns address each failure mode.

Prerequisites

• Understanding of circuit breaker pattern

• opossum

  installed for circuit breaker (

  npm install opossum

  )
• Queue infrastructure (BullMQ/Redis) for dead letter queue
• Caching layer for fallback data

Instructions

Pattern 1: Circuit Breaker per Adobe API

Different Adobe APIs fail independently — use separate circuit breakers:

import CircuitBreaker from 'opossum';

// IMS circuit breaker (auth failures cascade to everything)
const imsBreaker = new CircuitBreaker(
  async () => {
    const res = await fetch('https://ims-na1.adobelogin.com/ims/token/v3', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },
      body: new URLSearchParams({
        client_id: process.env.ADOBE_CLIENT_ID!,
        client_secret: process.env.ADOBE_CLIENT_SECRET!,
        grant_type: 'client_credentials',
        scope: process.env.ADOBE_SCOPES!,
      }),
    });
    if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`IMS ${res.status}`);
    return res.json();
  },
  {
    timeout: 10_000,              // IMS should respond in 10s
    errorThresholdPercentage: 30, // Open after 30% errors
    resetTimeout: 60_000,         // Try again after 1 min
    volumeThreshold: 3,           // Minimum calls before tripping
  }
);

// Firefly circuit breaker (higher tolerance for latency)
const fireflyBreaker = new CircuitBreaker(
  async (fn: () => Promise<any>) => fn(),
  {
    timeout: 60_000,              // Firefly jobs can take up to 60s
    errorThresholdPercentage: 50,
    resetTimeout: 30_000,
    volumeThreshold: 5,
  }
);

// PDF Services circuit breaker
const pdfBreaker = new CircuitBreaker(
  async (fn: () => Promise<any>) => fn(),
  {
    timeout: 30_000,
    errorThresholdPercentage: 40,
    resetTimeout: 30_000,
    volumeThreshold: 5,
  }
);

// Monitor circuit state
for (const [name, breaker] of [['ims', imsBreaker], ['firefly', fireflyBreaker], ['pdf', pdfBreaker]] as const) {
  breaker.on('open', () => console.warn(`Circuit ${name} OPEN — failing fast`));
  breaker.on('halfOpen', () => console.info(`Circuit ${name} HALF-OPEN — testing recovery`));
  breaker.on('close', () => console.info(`Circuit ${name} CLOSED — normal`));
}

Pattern 2: Graceful Degradation with Fallback

// When Adobe is down, return cached/default data instead of failing

interface FallbackResult<T> {
  data: T;
  source: 'live' | 'cached' | 'default';
  staleness?: string;
}

async function withAdobeFallback<T>(
  liveFn: () => Promise<T>,
  cacheKey: string,
  defaultValue: T
): Promise<FallbackResult<T>> {
  // Try live API first
  try {
    const data = await liveFn();
    // Update cache for future fallback
    await cache.set(cacheKey, JSON.stringify(data), 'EX', 3600);
    return { data, source: 'live' };
  } catch (error: any) {
    console.warn(`Adobe API failed (${error.message}), trying fallback`);
  }

  // Try cached data
  const cached = await cache.get(cacheKey);
  if (cached) {
    const ttl = await cache.ttl(cacheKey);
    return {
      data: JSON.parse(cached),
      source: 'cached',
      staleness: `${3600 - ttl}s old`,
    };
  }

  // Last resort: return default
  return { data: defaultValue, source: 'default' };
}

// Usage: image generation with fallback to placeholder
const result = await withAdobeFallback(
  () => generateImage({ prompt: 'product hero image' }),
  'hero-image-cache',
  { outputs: [{ image: { url: '/images/placeholder-hero.jpg' } }] }
);

if (result.source !== 'live') {
  console.warn(`Serving ${result.source} data for hero image`);
}

Pattern 3: Dead Letter Queue for Failed Jobs

import { Queue, Worker } from 'bullmq';
import { Redis } from 'ioredis';

const redis = new Redis(process.env.REDIS_URL);

// DLQ for failed Adobe operations
const adobeDlq = new Queue('adobe-dlq', { connection: redis });

// Main processing queue
const adobeQueue = new Queue('adobe-jobs', { connection: redis });

const worker = new Worker('adobe-jobs', async (job) => {
  try {
    switch (job.data.operation) {
      case 'firefly-generate':
        return await generateImage(job.data.params);
      case 'pdf-extract':
        return await extractPdfContent(job.data.params.pdfPath);
      case 'photoshop-cutout':
        return await removeBackground(job.data.params);
      default:
        throw new Error(`Unknown operation: ${job.data.operation}`);
    }
  } catch (error: any) {
    // Route to DLQ after max retries
    if (job.attemptsMade >= 3) {
      await adobeDlq.add('failed-job', {
        originalJob: job.data,
        error: error.message,
        attempts: job.attemptsMade,
        failedAt: new Date().toISOString(),
      });
      console.error(`Job ${job.id} moved to DLQ after ${job.attemptsMade} attempts`);
      return; // Don't rethrow — job is handled
    }
    throw error; // Retry
  }
}, {
  connection: redis,
  concurrency: 5,
  limiter: {
    max: 10,
    duration: 60_000, // Max 10 jobs per minute (respect Adobe rate limits)
  },
});

Pattern 4: Timeout Hierarchy for Adobe APIs

// Adobe APIs have very different latency profiles
const ADOBE_TIMEOUTS = {
  ims_token: 10_000,       // IMS should be fast
  firefly_sync: 30_000,    // Sync image generation
  firefly_async: 5_000,    // Async job submission (fast, just queues)
  firefly_poll: 120_000,   // Total polling timeout
  pdf_extract: 30_000,     // PDF extraction
  pdf_create: 20_000,      // PDF creation
  photoshop_submit: 5_000, // Job submission
  photoshop_poll: 120_000, // Total polling timeout
};

async function timedAdobeCall<T>(
  operation: keyof typeof ADOBE_TIMEOUTS,
  fn: () => Promise<T>
): Promise<T> {
  const timeout = ADOBE_TIMEOUTS[operation];
  return Promise.race([
    fn(),
    new Promise<never>((_, reject) =>
      setTimeout(() => reject(new Error(`Adobe ${operation} timeout (${timeout}ms)`)), timeout)
    ),
  ]);
}

Pattern 5: Health Check with Degraded State

type ServiceHealth = 'healthy' | 'degraded' | 'unhealthy';

async function adobeHealthCheck(): Promise<{
  status: ServiceHealth;
  services: Record<string, any>;
}> {
  const checks = {
    ims: {
      status: imsBreaker.stats().state === 'closed' ? 'healthy' : 'unhealthy',
      circuitState: imsBreaker.stats().state,
    },
    firefly: {
      status: fireflyBreaker.stats().state === 'closed' ? 'healthy' :
              fireflyBreaker.stats().state === 'halfOpen' ? 'degraded' : 'unhealthy',
      circuitState: fireflyBreaker.stats().state,
    },
    pdf: {
      status: pdfBreaker.stats().state === 'closed' ? 'healthy' : 'degraded',
      circuitState: pdfBreaker.stats().state,
    },
    dlq: {
      size: await adobeDlq.count(),
      status: (await adobeDlq.count()) > 100 ? 'degraded' : 'healthy',
    },
  };

  const overall: ServiceHealth =
    checks.ims.status === 'unhealthy' ? 'unhealthy' :
    Object.values(checks).some(c => c.status === 'degraded') ? 'degraded' :
    'healthy';

  return { status: overall, services: checks };
}

Output

• Per-API circuit breakers (IMS, Firefly, PDF Services)
• Graceful degradation with cached/default fallback
• Dead letter queue for failed async jobs
• Timeout hierarchy matching Adobe API latency profiles
• Health check with degraded state detection

Error Handling

resetTimeout

Resources

• Opossum Circuit Breaker
• BullMQ Documentation
• Circuit Breaker Pattern
• Adobe Status Page

Next Steps

For policy enforcement, see

adobe-policy-guardrails