error-handling-patterns

Use fail fast in CI/CD pipelines to immediately stop invalid or unsafe operations and surface actionable errors, while applying graceful degradation allows operations to continue using safe fallbacks when full capability is unavailable.

To decide whether to fail or continue an automation workflow, apply a decision flow that evaluates prerequisite checks, input validity, and service availability to determine if failing fast or degrading gracefully is appropriate.

Prerequisite checks in GitHub Actions error handling validate required tools, system state, and inputs before work begins, ensuring the environment meets operational requirements and preventing failures during execution.

Yes, this error handling decision flow works for platform automation by applying prerequisite checks and graceful degradation patterns to maintain system reliability and minimize downtime when external services fail.

The best way to handle invalid inputs in automation workflows is to implement fail fast patterns that immediately stop operations and surface actionable errors, preventing unsafe execution downstream.