Memory Failure Cases

Memory systems fail just like any other component. Agents must handle missing, corrupt, or stale state gracefully rather than crashing.

6 min•By Priygop Team•Updated 2026

Failure Scenarios

Key not found: the expected state key does not exist — use default values and continue
Corrupt state: the state file is invalid JSON — reload from backup or restart the task
State out of date: the agent reads old state because a write failed — validate before using
Storage unavailable: the database or Redis is down — fall back to in-memory state with a warning
State too large: the state has grown too big to process — truncate history and keep only recent entries
Concurrent write conflict: two agents wrote at the same time — resolve by retrying with the latest state

Memory systems fail just like any other component.
Key not found: the expected state key does not exist — use default values and continue
Corrupt state: the state file is invalid JSON — reload from backup or restart the task
State out of date: the agent reads old state because a write failed — validate before using

Topics in This Module

Failure Scenarios

Key not found: the expected state key does not exist — use default values and continue

Corrupt state: the state file is invalid JSON — reload from backup or restart the task

State out of date: the agent reads old state because a write failed — validate before using

Storage unavailable: the database or Redis is down — fall back to in-memory state with a warning

State too large: the state has grown too big to process — truncate history and keep only recent entries

Concurrent write conflict: two agents wrote at the same time — resolve by retrying with the latest state

Topics in This Module