Glossary · AI-native development
Circuit Breaker
A reliability control that temporarily stops calls to a dependency after failures cross a threshold, then probes whether the dependency has recovered.
Why it matters
It prevents repeated model or tool failures from consuming latency, budget, and capacity across the rest of the system.
In practice
Open the breaker after repeated provider timeouts, fail over or return a controlled response, then allow a limited health probe after a cooldown.
Common confusion
A circuit breaker reacts to dependency health. A rate limit controls allowed request volume.
Related terms
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