Aglet

Investigate API dependency failure boundaries

Investigation should show where a dependency failure becomes a local decision. Build healthy, timeout, rejection, rate, stale-fallback, and recovery fixtures, then follow the same operation identity. Keep dependency outage, configuration error, and local classification as competing explanations with bounded fixtures.

Build a useful investigation brief

  1. Build failure-mode fixtures

    Create a healthy response, connection failure, timeout, explicit rejection, rate response, stale fallback, and first-success recovery. Record expected local state and allowed action before execution. Include a write and read if their fallback rules differ.

  2. Trace classification and state

    Capture dependency endpoint, transport result, classifier, fallback age, local pending or degraded state, user-visible result, and reconciliation marker. Compare first divergence between healthy and failed cases. Preserve operation identity without raw payloads.

  3. Challenge recovery assumptions

    Vary only dependency response, timeout, local config, cache age, or recovery timing. Compare stale, pending, and current states. If a failure could come from both remote outage and local routing, document the missing network or configuration evidence.

What to carry forward

The investigation is ready when fixtures show dependency, classifier, local state, fallback, and reconciliation transitions for one operation. Deliver a bounded fallback or evidence change. Keep remote recovery and data freshness limits explicit. Keep the dependency boundary explicit in the brief.

Technical background: RFC Editor reference.

Keep the decision with the work.

Use a Work Item in Aglet to record the problem, the evidence you have, and the next decision. Add an owner and priority, then keep updates in the discussion so the next person can follow the reasoning.

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