cascade-workflow

# Cascade Workflow with Graceful Degradation Skill

## Purpose

Implement graceful degradation through cascading fallback strategies. When optimal approaches fail or timeout, the system automatically falls back to simpler, more reliable alternatives while maintaining acceptable functionality.

## When to Use This Skill

**USE FOR:**

- External service dependencies (APIs, databases)
- Time-sensitive operations with acceptable degraded modes
- Operations where partial results are better than no results
- High-availability requirements (system must always respond)
- Scenarios where waiting for perfect solution is worse than good-enough solution

**AVOID FOR:**

- Operations requiring exact correctness (no acceptable degradation)
- Security-critical operations (authentication, authorization)
- Financial transactions (no room for "approximate")
- When failures must surface to user (diagnostic operations)
- Simple operations with no meaningful fallback

## Configuration

### Core Parameters

**Timeout Strategy:**

- `aggressive` - Fast failures, quick degradation (5s / 2s / 1s)
- `balanced` - Reasonable attempts (30s / 10s / 5s) - **DEFAULT**
- `patient` - Thorough attempts before fallback (120s / 30s / 10s)
- `custom` - Define your own timeouts

**Fallback Types:**

- `service` - External API → Cached data → Static defaults
- `quality` - Comprehensive → Standard → Minimal analysis
- `freshness` - Real-time → Recent → Historical data
- `completeness` - Full dataset → Sample → Summary
- `accuracy` - Precise → Approximate → Estimate

**Degradation Notification:**

- `silent` - Log only, no user notification
- `warning` - Inform user of degradation
- `explicit` - Detailed explanation of what degraded and why

## Cascade Level Requirements

**PRIMARY (Optimal):**

- Best possible outcome
- May depend on external services
- May be slow or resource-intensive
- Can fail or timeout

**SECONDARY (Acceptable):**

- Reduced quality but functional
- More reliable than primary
- Fast