M13 Domain Error

Domain Error Strategy

Layer 2: Design Choices

Core Question

Who needs to handle this error, and how should they recover?

Before designing error types:

• Is this user-facing or internal?
• Is recovery possible?
• What context is needed for debugging?

Error Categorization

Thinking Prompt

Before designing error types:

1. Who sees this error?

   • End user → friendly message, actionable
   • Developer → detailed, debuggable
   • Ops → structured, alertable

2. Can we recover?

   • Transient → retry with backoff
   • Degradable → fallback value
   • Permanent → fail fast, alert

3. What context is needed?

   • Call chain → anyhow::Context
   • Request ID → structured logging
   • Input data → error payload

Trace Up ↑

To domain constraints (Layer 3):

"How should I handle payment failures?"    ↑ Ask: What are the business rules for retries?    ↑ Check: domain-fintech (transaction requirements)    ↑ Check: SLA (availability requirements)

Trace Down ↓

To implementation (Layer 1):

"Need typed errors"    ↓ m06-error-handling: thiserror for library    ↓ m04-zero-cost: Error enum design
"Need error context"    ↓ m06-error-handling: anyhow::Context    ↓ Logging: tracing with fields
"Need retry logic"    ↓ m07-concurrency: async retry patterns    ↓ Crates: tokio-retry, backoff

Quick Reference

Error Hierarchy

#[derive(thiserror::Error, Debug)]pub enum AppError {    // User-facing    #[error("Invalid input: {0}")]    Validation(String),
    // Transient (retryable)    #[error("Service temporarily unavailable")]    ServiceUnavailable(#[source] reqwest::Error),
    // Internal (log details, show generic)    #[error("Internal error")]    Internal(#[source] anyhow::Error),}
impl AppError {    pub fn is_retryable(&self) -> bool {        matches!(self, Self::ServiceUnavailable(_))    }}

Retry Pattern

use tokio_retry::{Retry, strategy::ExponentialBackoff};
async fn with_retry<F, T, E>(f: F) -> Result<T, E>where    F: Fn() -> impl Future<Output = Result<T, E>>,    E: std::fmt::Debug,{    let strategy = ExponentialBackoff::from_millis(100)        .max_delay(Duration::from_secs(10))        .take(5);
    Retry::spawn(strategy, || f()).await}

Common Mistakes

Anti-Patterns

Related Skills