Primitive of the day · 2026-10-24

fallback-ladder-priority-order

Order recovery fallbacks cheapest-first: simpler method, then cached/saved data, then a safe default answer, then human-in-the-loop.

When this applies

Designing the permanent-error recovery path of an agent or pipeline.

Rank backup options in priority order - simpler method, saved/cached data, safe default answer, human escalation - and try them in that order.

Most failures degrade gracefully without human latency; humans only see the residue.

Unordered fallbacks either overuse humans (latency) or overuse defaults (silent wrong answers).

NOT for transient errors (retry with backoff handles those); NOT when a wrong-but-plausible default is dangerous (skip straight to human).

Kind: calibration. Part of the skill Agentic design pattern selector. Free to reuse in your own agent skills.

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