data-service-circuit-breaker-aware

Data Service Pattern

Each panel's data comes from a dedicated service module in src/services/. Services handle API calls, caching, error handling with circuit breaker pattern.

Circuit Breaker

The circuit breaker prevents cascading failures when an API is down. After N consecutive failures, it enters "cooldown" mode and serves cached data instead of hitting the API.

Create src/utils/circuit-breaker.ts:

interface CircuitState {
  failures: number;
  cooldownUntil: number;
}

interface CacheEntry<T> {
  data: T;
  timestamp: number;
}

export interface CircuitBreakerOptions {
  name: string;
  maxFailures?: number;
  cooldownMs?: number;
  cacheTtlMs?: number;
}

export class CircuitBreaker<T> {
  private state: CircuitState = { failures: 0, cooldownUntil: 0 };
  private cache: CacheEntry<T> | null = null;
  private name: string;
  private maxFailures: number;
  private cooldownMs: number;
  private cacheTtlMs: number;

  constructor(options: CircuitBreakerOptions) {
    this.name = options.name;
    this.maxFailures = options.maxFailures ?? 2;
    this.cooldownMs = options.cooldownMs ?? 5 * 60 * 1000;  // 5 minutes
    this.cacheTtlMs = options.cacheTtlMs ?? 10 * 60 * 1000; // 10 minutes
  }

  isOnCooldown(): boolean {
    if (Date.now() < this.state.cooldownUntil) return true;
    if (this.state.cooldownUntil > 0) {
      this.state = { failures: 0, cooldownUntil: 0 };
    }
    return false;
  }

  getCached(): T | null {
    if (this.cache && Date.now() - this.cache.timestamp < this.cacheTtlMs) {
      return this.cache.data;
    }
    return null;
  }

  recordSuccess(data: T): void {
    this.state = { failures: 0, cooldownUntil: 0 };
    this.cache = { data, timestamp: Date.now() };
  }

  recordFailure(error?: string): void {
    this.state.failures++;
    if (this.state.failures >= this.maxFailures) {
      this.state.cooldownUntil = Date.now() + this.cooldownMs;
      console.warn(`[${this.name}] Cooldown for ${this.cooldownMs / 1000}s`);
    }
  }

  async execute<R extends T>(fn: () => Promise<R>, defaultValue: R): Promise<R> {
    if (this.isOnCooldown()) {
      const cached = this.getCached();
      return (cached as R) ?? defaultValue;
    }
    const cached = this.getCached();
    if (cached !== null) return cached as R;
    try {
      const result = await fn();
      this.recordSuccess(result);
      return result;
    } catch (e) {
      console.error(`[${this.name}] Failed:`, e);
      this.recordFailure(String(e));
      return defaultValue;
    }
  }
}

export function createCircuitBreaker<T>(options: CircuitBreakerOptions): CircuitBreaker<T> {
  return new CircuitBreaker<T>(options);
}

Service Module Pattern

Each service is a TypeScript module that exports async data-fetching functions:

// src/services/stock-market.ts
import { createCircuitBreaker } from '../utils/circuit-breaker';

export interface StockQuote {
  symbol: string;
  name: string;
  price: number | null;
  change: number | null;
  sparkline?: number[];
}

const breaker = createCircuitBreaker<StockQuote[]>({
  name: 'StockMarket',
  cacheTtlMs: 60_000, // 1 minute cache
});

export async function fetchStockQuotes(symbols: string[]): Promise<StockQuote[]> {
  return breaker.execute(async () => {
    const params = new URLSearchParams({ symbols: symbols.join(',') });
    const resp = await fetch(`/api/stocks?${params}`);
    if (!resp.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${resp.status}`);
    return resp.json();
  }, []);
}

Key Patterns

1. One circuit breaker per API endpoint — create at module level
2. Export typed interfaces for data shapes
3. Wrap fetch calls in breaker.execute(fn, defaultValue)
4. Default values are empty arrays [] or empty objects {}
5. Services are stateless modules — no class instances, just exported functions
6. API proxy: Frontend calls /api/... which proxies to external APIs (hides API keys)

When to Skip the Circuit Breaker

The circuit breaker is designed to protect background auto-polling services from cascading failures. It is not always appropriate — applying it blindly adds unnecessary complexity and can actively cause problems for user-driven flows.

Use the circuit breaker when:

• The service is polled automatically on an interval (e.g., every 30 seconds, every minute)
• Repeated failures would hammer a degraded API endpoint
• Serving stale cached data is an acceptable fallback (the user won't notice a brief outage)
• The data refreshes in the background without explicit user intent

// ✅ Background polling — circuit breaker appropriate
const breaker = createCircuitBreaker<StockQuote[]>({ name: 'StockMarket', cacheTtlMs: 60_000 });

export async function fetchStockQuotes(symbols: string[]): Promise<StockQuote[]> {
  return breaker.execute(async () => {
    const resp = await fetch(`/api/stocks?symbols=${symbols.join(',')}`);
    if (!resp.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${resp.status}`);
    return resp.json();
  }, []);
}

// Called on a timer — circuit breaker protects against rapid failure storms
setInterval(() => fetchStockQuotes(['AAPL', 'MSFT']), 60_000);

Skip the circuit breaker when:

• The call is user-triggered (button click, explicit refresh, form submit)
• The operation is one-shot and non-repeating (e.g., LLM text generation, send message)
• Failure should surface immediately to the user as an error — not silently return stale data
• The user expects a fresh result, not a cache hit
• Retry/error handling is managed by the UI layer (e.g., a "Try again" button)

// ✅ User-triggered one-shot LLM call — NO circuit breaker
export interface DailyBriefingData {
  briefing: string;
  generatedAt: string;
}

export async function generateDailyBriefing(context: string): Promise<DailyBriefingData> {
  // No circuit breaker: this is explicitly triggered by the user clicking "Generate".
  // Failures should throw so the UI can show an error and offer a retry button.
  const resp = await fetch('/api/llm/generate', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ prompt: context }),
  });
  if (!resp.ok) throw new Error(`LLM generation failed: HTTP ${resp.status}`);
  const { text } = await resp.json();
  return { briefing: text, generatedAt: new Date().toISOString() };
}

Decision table

Trigger	Repeats automatically?	Stale data OK?	Use circuit breaker?
Timer / interval	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
App startup fetch	❌ No	✅ Yes	Optional
Button / user action	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
LLM generation	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Explicit refresh	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No

UI error handling for one-shot calls

When skipping the circuit breaker, the calling component is responsible for surfacing errors:

// In the panel/component that calls a one-shot service:
async generate(): Promise<void> {
  if (this.isFetching) return;
  this.isFetching = true;
  this.showLoading();
  try {
    const data = await generateDailyBriefing(this.buildContext());
    this.render(data);
  } catch (e) {
    // Surface the error directly — no silent cache fallback
    this.showError('Generation failed. Please try again.', () => this.generate());
  } finally {
    this.isFetching = false;
  }
}

Rule of thumb: If a human is waiting for the result of a specific action they just took, skip the circuit breaker and let errors propagate to the UI. If a machine is polling in the background, use the circuit breaker.

API Proxy Pattern

For APIs requiring keys, create server-side proxy endpoints:

// api/stocks.ts (Vercel serverless function)
export default async function handler(req, res) {
  const { symbols } = req.query;
  const apiKey = process.env.FINNHUB_API_KEY;
  const data = await fetch(`https://finnhub.io/api/v1/quote?symbol=${symbols}&token=${apiKey}`);
  res.json(await data.json());
}

This keeps API keys server-side and provides a single endpoint for the frontend.