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Backend Chaos Testing for Dependencies

This backend supports controlled dependency outage simulation for resilience testing.

Overview

Chaos testing is implemented around upstream dependency calls (currently contracts data retrieval). The API can intentionally simulate dependency errors/timeouts and verify graceful degradation behavior.

Configuration

Set these environment variables:

  • GRACEFUL_DEGRADATION_ENABLED (true or false, default true)
  • UPSTREAM_CONTRACTS_URL (default https://example.invalid/contracts)
  • UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT_MS (default 1200, clamped to 100..10000)
  • CHAOS_MODE (off, error, timeout, random; default off)
  • CHAOS_TARGETS (comma-separated dependency names, e.g. contracts)
  • CHAOS_PROBABILITY (for random, float 0..1)

Expected API Behavior

Endpoint: GET /api/v1/contracts

  • Normal path: 200 with degraded: false and source: upstream
  • Dependency outage with graceful degradation enabled: 200 with empty contracts payload and degraded: true
  • Dependency outage with graceful degradation disabled: 503 with contracts_unavailable

Security Notes

  • Failures are sanitized to avoid leaking upstream internals in API responses.
  • Timeout value is clamped to prevent abuse from unsafe environment configuration.
  • Fallback response is explicit (degraded: true) so downstream consumers can avoid treating it as fresh upstream data.
  • Chaos controls are environment-driven and should remain disabled in production by setting CHAOS_MODE=off.

Threat Scenarios Considered

  • Upstream dependency becomes unreachable.
  • Upstream returns malformed payloads.
  • Upstream returns non-2xx status codes.
  • Induced timeout/error injections to validate graceful degradation behavior.

Testing Scope

  • Unit tests validate chaos policy decisions and dependency client behavior.
  • Integration tests validate API behavior for success, degraded fallback, and strict failure mode.