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An architectural principle that preserves core functionality under partial failure by sacrificing less critical features.
Graceful degradation is an architectural principle that designs systems to preserve core functionality under partial failure or high load while sacrificing nonessential features. It increases fault tolerance and enables controlled degraded operating modes instead of total outages. Applicable across user interfaces, services, and distributed platforms.
Share of requests served via degraded responses compared to total requests.
Time from start of degradation to full restoration of functionality.
Availability of components or endpoints defined as critical.
When dynamic APIs fail, cached static pages are served so content remains visible.
A circuit breaker isolates failing dependencies and routes to simplified responses or cached values.
The app offers limited functions with local cache when backend services are unreachable.
Identify critical paths and prioritize
Design and implement tested fallbacks
Integrated monitoring, SLOs and automated responses