Graceful Degradation

Kind: principle

Layer: Correctness Core

Record: architecture:graceful-degradation

Severity: recommended

Scope: service, UX, system

Canonical: Ontology

A design rule that the failure of an optional dependency removes only the feature it serves, and the rest of the system keeps working.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Fail Secure and before Fault Tolerance.

Requires

• Fallback
• Feature Isolation

Reinforces

• Fault Tolerance

Enables

• Partial Availability

Conflicts with

• All-Or-Nothing Failure

In tension with

• Consistency / Feature Completeness
• Fail Fast
• Fail Fast / Graceful Degradation

Tensions

• Graceful Degradation / Consistency / Feature Completeness

Violated by

• All-Or-Nothing Failure

Refactored by

• Fallback Pattern

Severity

• recommended

Category

• Error Handling / Resilience

Linked from

• Fail at the boundary
• Separate, trade, or mitigate
• Error Handling / Resilience
• Core Vocabulary
• Error Handling / Resilience
• Quality Attributes
• Severity levels
• The resolutions