Day 17 of 19 · Part 3: Operating at scale
Error handling is part of the product
Production automation fails. Mature automation expects it, and explains failures in a way operators can act on.
Production automation fails. Mature automation expects it.
A solid error-handling playbook
- Normalize API errors. Don’t leak raw 4xx and 5xx responses to operators.
- Smart retry with exponential backoff, especially for throttling (Day 4).
- Operator runbooks and scripts that explain what to do, not just what broke.
Good automation
- ✅ Protects the service
- ✅ Preserves intent
- ✅ Makes failure actionable
If your system can’t explain a failure clearly, it isn’t done yet.
Further reading
- Microsoft Graph throttling guidance, Microsoft Learn