Messaging Patterns

The Circuit Breaker Pattern

Stop cascading failures by detecting when a downstream service is unhealthy and short-circuiting calls until it recovers.

February 16, 2026
#circuit-breaker#microservices#distributed-systems

A circuit breaker wraps a remote call and tracks failure rates. In the Closed state, calls pass through normally. After a failure threshold is crossed, the breaker trips to Open and immediately rejects calls (fail fast). After a timeout, it enters Half-Open and allows a probe request: success resets to Closed, failure returns to Open.

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