Graceful degradation.

also: degrade gracefully · degraded mode · degrades gracefully

Keeping the core working with reduced features or accuracy when a dependency fails, instead of failing completely.

the two-minute refresher

Decide in advance what can be dropped: recommendations, exact counts, non-critical features.
Example: a rate limiter falls back to local in-memory limits when Redis fails.
Serve stale cached data, default values or simpler paths.
Make degraded mode visible in metrics so it isn't silently permanent.

also: degrade gracefully · degraded mode · degrades gracefully

Keeping the core working with reduced features or accuracy when a dependency fails, instead of failing completely.

Decide in advance what can be dropped: recommendations, exact counts, non-critical features.
Example: a rate limiter falls back to local in-memory limits when Redis fails.
Serve stale cached data, default values or simpler paths.
Make degraded mode visible in metrics so it isn't silently permanent.