Result Pattern

Wraps operation outcomes in Result<T> representing success or failure. Alternative to throwing exceptions for expected errors—provides explicit error paths and forces consumers to handle errors.

When to Use

• Expected business errors (validation failed, user not found, unauthorized)
• Chaining multiple operations that can fail
• Type-safe error handling across layers
• API endpoints that need different HTTP status codes per error type

Don't use for:

• Truly unexpected errors (null pointer, out of memory) → throw exceptions
• Simple getters that can't fail
• Internal private helpers