Architecture & DesignIntermediate
Circuit Breaker
PronunciationSER-kit BRAY-ker
Definition
A design pattern used in distributed systems to detect failures and temporarily stop sending requests to a failing service, preventing cascading failures.
Where you hear it
In microservices architecture discussions, resilience planning, and system reliability meetings.
Examples
The circuit breaker opened after the payment service threw too many errors, falling back to a cached response.
We configured the circuit breaker to automatically retry the remote API after a thirty-second cooling period.
Common mistake
Confusing it with a simple timeout, whereas a circuit breaker tracks failure rates over time and stops calling the service entirely until it recovers.
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