Why it matters

Failover shapes reliability. Understanding shapes design.

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The architecture

Detect failure (5xx, timeout, rate limit).

Route to fallback provider.

Return normal response.

Provider failover flowPrimary providerfirst choiceDetect failure5xx / timeout / limitFallback providersecondaryCache prompts + responses for consistency; watch cost + quality on fallback
Failover.
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How it works end to end

Circuit breaker per provider.

Model-equivalent fallbacks.

Prompt-cache invalidation.

Cost tracking on fallback.