---

name: clay-reliability-patterns description: | Implement Clay reliability patterns including circuit breakers, idempotency, and graceful degradation. Use when building fault-tolerant Clay integrations, implementing retry strategies, or adding resilience to production Clay services. Trigger with phrases like "clay reliability", "clay circuit breaker", "clay idempotent", "clay resilience", "clay fallback", "clay bulkhead". allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit version: 1.0.0 license: MIT author: Jeremy Longshore jeremy@intentsolutions.io

Clay Reliability Patterns

Overview

Production-grade reliability patterns for Clay integrations.

Prerequisites

• Understanding of circuit breaker pattern
• opossum or similar library installed
• Queue infrastructure for DLQ
• Caching layer for fallbacks

Circuit Breaker

Copyimport CircuitBreaker from 'opossum';

const clayBreaker = new CircuitBreaker(
  async (operation: () => Promise<any>) => operation(),
  {
    timeout: 30000,
    errorThresholdPercentage: 50,
    resetTimeout: 30000,
    volumeThreshold: 10,
  }
);

// Events
clayBreaker.on('open', () => {
  console.warn('Clay circuit OPEN - requests failing fast');
  alertOps('Clay circuit breaker opened');
});

clayBreaker.on('halfOpen', () => {
  console.info('Clay circuit HALF-OPEN - testing recovery');
});

clayBreaker.on('close', () => {
  console.info('Clay circuit CLOSED - normal operation');
});

// Usage
async function safeClayCall<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
  return clayBreaker.fire(fn);
}

Idempotency Keys

Copyimport { v4 as uuidv4 } from 'uuid';
import crypto from 'crypto';

// Generate deterministic idempotency key from input
function generateIdempotencyKey(
  operation: string,
  params: Record<string, any>
): string {
  const data = JSON.stringify({ operation, params });
  return crypto.createHash('sha256').update(data).digest('hex');
}

// Or use random key with storage
class IdempotencyManager {
  private store: Map<string, { key: string; expiresAt: Date }> = new Map();

  getOrCreate(operationId: string): string {
    const existing = this.store.get(operationId);
    if (existing && existing.expiresAt > new Date()) {
      return existing.key;
    }

    const key = uuidv4();
    this.store.set(operationId, {
      key,
      expiresAt: new Date(Date.now() + 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000),
    });
    return key;
  }
}

Bulkhead Pattern

Copyimport PQueue from 'p-queue';

// Separate queues for different operations
const clayQueues = {
  critical: new PQueue({ concurrency: 10 }),
  normal: new PQueue({ concurrency: 5 }),
  bulk: new PQueue({ concurrency: 2 }),
};

async function prioritizedClayCall<T>(
  priority: 'critical' | 'normal' | 'bulk',
  fn: () => Promise<T>
): Promise<T> {
  return clayQueues[priority].add(fn);
}

// Usage
await prioritizedClayCall('critical', () =>
  clayClient.processPayment(order)
);

await prioritizedClayCall('bulk', () =>
  clayClient.syncCatalog(products)
);

Timeout Hierarchy

Copyconst TIMEOUT_CONFIG = {
  connect: 5000,      // Initial connection
  request: 30000,     // Standard requests
  upload: 120000,     // File uploads
  longPoll: 300000,   // Webhook long-polling
};

async function timedoutClayCall<T>(
  operation: 'connect' | 'request' | 'upload' | 'longPoll',
  fn: () => Promise<T>
): Promise<T> {
  const timeout = TIMEOUT_CONFIG[operation];

  return Promise.race([
    fn(),
    new Promise<never>((_, reject) =>
      setTimeout(() => reject(new Error(`Clay ${operation} timeout`)), timeout)
    ),
  ]);
}

Graceful Degradation

Copyinterface ClayFallback {
  enabled: boolean;
  data: any;
  staleness: 'fresh' | 'stale' | 'very_stale';
}

async function withClayFallback<T>(
  fn: () => Promise<T>,
  fallbackFn: () => Promise<T>
): Promise<{ data: T; fallback: boolean }> {
  try {
    const data = await fn();
    // Update cache for future fallback
    await updateFallbackCache(data);
    return { data, fallback: false };
  } catch (error) {
    console.warn('Clay failed, using fallback:', error.message);
    const data = await fallbackFn();
    return { data, fallback: true };
  }
}

Dead Letter Queue

Copyinterface DeadLetterEntry {
  id: string;
  operation: string;
  payload: any;
  error: string;
  attempts: number;
  lastAttempt: Date;
}

class ClayDeadLetterQueue {
  private queue: DeadLetterEntry[] = [];

  add(entry: Omit<DeadLetterEntry, 'id' | 'lastAttempt'>): void {
    this.queue.push({
      ...entry,
      id: uuidv4(),
      lastAttempt: new Date(),
    });
  }

  async processOne(): Promise<boolean> {
    const entry = this.queue.shift();
    if (!entry) return false;

    try {
      await clayClient[entry.operation](entry.payload);
      console.log(`DLQ: Successfully reprocessed ${entry.id}`);
      return true;
    } catch (error) {
      entry.attempts++;
      entry.lastAttempt = new Date();

      if (entry.attempts < 5) {
        this.queue.push(entry);
      } else {
        console.error(`DLQ: Giving up on ${entry.id} after 5 attempts`);
        await alertOnPermanentFailure(entry);
      }
      return false;
    }
  }
}

Health Check with Degraded State

Copytype HealthStatus = 'healthy' | 'degraded' | 'unhealthy';

async function clayHealthCheck(): Promise<{
  status: HealthStatus;
  details: Record<string, any>;
}> {
  const checks = {
    api: await checkApiConnectivity(),
    circuitBreaker: clayBreaker.stats(),
    dlqSize: deadLetterQueue.size(),
  };

  const status: HealthStatus =
    !checks.api.connected ? 'unhealthy' :
    checks.circuitBreaker.state === 'open' ? 'degraded' :
    checks.dlqSize > 100 ? 'degraded' :
    'healthy';

  return { status, details: checks };
}

Instructions

Step 1: Implement Circuit Breaker

Wrap Clay calls with circuit breaker.

Step 2: Add Idempotency Keys

Generate deterministic keys for operations.

Step 3: Configure Bulkheads

Separate queues for different priorities.

Step 4: Set Up Dead Letter Queue

Handle permanent failures gracefully.

Output

• Circuit breaker protecting Clay calls
• Idempotency preventing duplicates
• Bulkhead isolation implemented
• DLQ for failed operations

Error Handling

Examples

Quick Circuit Check

Copyconst state = clayBreaker.stats().state;
console.log('Clay circuit:', state);

Resources

• Circuit Breaker Pattern
• Opossum Documentation
• Clay Reliability Guide

Next Steps

For policy enforcement, see clay-policy-guardrails.