Error Handling Patterns

Error handling patterns across languages and layers — operational vs programmer errors, retry strategies, circuit breakers, error boundaries, HTTP responses, graceful degradation, and structured logging. Use when designing error strategies, building resilient APIs, or reviewing error management.

What's Inside

• Error Handling Philosophy — fail fast, fail loud, handle at boundaries, be specific, provide context
• Error Types — operational errors vs programmer errors
• Language Patterns — JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust error handling idioms
• Error Boundaries — Express error middleware, React error boundary
• Retry Patterns — exponential backoff with jitter, circuit breaker, bulkhead, timeout
• HTTP Error Responses — status codes, standard error envelope
• Graceful Degradation — fallback values, feature flags, cached responses, partial responses
• Logging & Monitoring — structured logging, error tracking, alert thresholds, correlation IDs
• Anti-Patterns — swallowing errors, generic catch-all, stringly-typed errors, and more

When to Use

• Designing error handling strategies for APIs or applications
• Building resilient systems with retry and circuit breaker patterns
• Implementing error boundaries in Express or React
• Standardizing error response formats across endpoints
• Adding graceful degradation for non-critical services
• Setting up structured error logging and monitoring

Installation

npx add https://github.com/wpank/ai/tree/main/skills/api/error-handling

Manual Installation

Cursor (per-project)

From your project root:

mkdir -p .cursor/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/error-handling .cursor/skills/error-handling

Cursor (global)

mkdir -p ~/.cursor/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/error-handling ~/.cursor/skills/error-handling

Claude Code (per-project)

From your project root:

mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/error-handling .claude/skills/error-handling

Claude Code (global)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/error-handling ~/.claude/skills/error-handling

Related Skills

• api-design — Error response format and status code usage
• rate-limiting — Rate limit errors (429) and retry handling
• caching — Never cache error responses

Part of the API skill category.