What to do now
Before restoring automation, freeze the manual interval, reconcile every intended business action to provider state and manual effects, import or link manual records, suppress duplicates, test the recovered path, and transfer authority at an explicit checkpoint. Monitor late events and retries through a defined handback window.
Key takeaways
Freeze the outage and manual-processing population
Record provider/environment, failed capability, first and last known-good checkpoints, degraded-mode start, paused jobs, manual or alternate channels, people authorized to act, business-action identities, external receipts, and unprocessed backlog. Preserve late events separately from newly created work.
Stripe documents duplicate and out-of-order webhook delivery considerations. The provider-specific behavior is illustrative; use the actual provider’s current recovery and event guidance.
Give every intended action one disposition
Reconcile at the business-action level before allowing automation to consume the backlog.
| Observed state | Disposition | Automation control |
|---|---|---|
| Completed manually and provider-confirmed | Link receipt and mark satisfied | Suppress replay |
| Completed manually without provider action | Record system-of-record effect | Prevent external duplicate |
| Provider completed; manual record missing | Import/link outcome | Advance checkpoint |
| Not attempted | Return to eligible queue if still valid | Refresh evidence and authority |
| Attempted; outcome uncertain | Investigate current provider state | Hold retry |
| Expired/canceled during outage | Retain no-action reason | Do not revive |
Transfer authority at a tested checkpoint
Verify credentials, endpoint health, schema/version, queue state, idempotency store, current object state, and monitoring. Run a non-consequential or tightly bounded canary, then enable the smallest safe action class or population.
Close after late events and provider retries are reconciled, manual operators acknowledge the handback, alternate access is retired, and monitoring covers duplicates, omissions, and mismatched current state.
Exercise the fallback before relying on it
Use synthetic or approved test records to inject a bounded dependency failure and observe detection, fallback activation, changed human authority, degraded capability, queue or backlog treatment, restoration, and cleanup. Prevent live consequential effects and document what the test environment cannot prove.
Treat exercise gaps as owned changes with a retest. A tabletop statement that staff can work manually does not prove permissions, source access, capacity, downstream labeling, reconciliation, or a safe return checkpoint.
Operational checklist
Mark your progress, then save a working copy. Selections reset when you leave this page. A checked box is not an approval or evidence of completion.
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Edge cases
Sources and references
Follow each source to check the underlying claim. Access checks and professional review are different steps.