| name | failure-propagation-analyzer |
| description | Analyze likely cascade paths and propagation semantics in DSDS architectures. Use when estimating blast radius, diagnosing multi-hop degradation, validating containment strategies, or explaining how a localized failure can become systemic. |
Failure Propagation Analyzer
Overview
Model how failures spread through dependencies and identify where containment should happen. Produce an explicit trigger-to-impact chain with mitigation points.
Workflow
- Build dependency view
- Identify upstream/downstream relationships and critical dependencies.
- Mark optional fallbacks and graceful degradation paths.
- Define trigger failure
- Choose initiating failure type and target component.
- Record timing and intensity assumptions.
- Apply propagation semantics
- Evaluate timeouts, retries, queue growth, resource exhaustion, and split-brain risks.
- Track each hop with expected delay and effect.
- Estimate blast radius
- Identify directly affected components, second-order impacts, and user-facing outcomes.
- Distinguish local degradation from system-wide risk.
- Propose containment
- Recommend controls: bulkheads, breakers, timeouts, backpressure, and load shedding.
- Prioritize controls by impact reduction and implementation effort.
Output format
Trigger definition
Propagation chain
Blast radius summary
Containment recommendations
Confidence and assumptions
References
- Read
references/propagation-modeling-checklist.md for analysis checklist.
- Use these repo sources:
canonical-catalogue/DSDS Canonical Catalogue - Failure modes & propagation semantics.csv
docs/04-distributed-systems-and-failures.md (Chapters 22-24)
planning/IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md (Phase 4)