Circuit Breaker Pattern

Prevent cascade failures by failing fast when a service is unhealthy.

When to Use This Skill

• Adding resilience to external API calls
• Protecting against slow or failing downstream services
• Implementing graceful degradation
• Building fault-tolerant microservices

Core Concepts

A circuit breaker has three states:

1. CLOSED: Normal operation, requests pass through
2. OPEN: Service is failing, requests fail immediately
3. HALF_OPEN: Testing if service recovered