SwiftUI Circuit Breakers & Network Resilience Patterns (Prevent Cascading Failures)

Most apps call APIs like this: try await api . fetchUser () That works… until the server starts failing. Then your app does this: retries immediately sends hundreds of failing requests drains battery overloads the backend slows down the UI worsens the outage This is called a cascading failure. A production app needs protection mechanisms. This post shows how to implement circuit breakers and network resilience patterns in SwiftUI that are: failure-aware backend-friendly battery-conscious retry-safe production-grade 🧠 The Core Principle When a system is failing, stop making it worse. Instead of retrying endlessly, the system must detect failures and pause requests. 🧱 1. What Is a Circuit Breaker? A circuit breaker prevents repeated calls to a failing service. It has three states: Closed → Normal operation Open → Requests blocked Half-Open → Testing recovery Flow: Requests Fail → Circuit Opens → Requests Blocked → Recovery Test → Circuit Closes 🔌 2. Define Circuit States enum CircuitStat