What is Automation Error Handling?

Automations run unattended, which means a failure that would prompt a human to pause and think instead needs a pre-decided response baked into the system. Good error handling classifies failures: transient errors (a timed-out API call) get bounded retries with backoff, permanent errors (invalid input data) get routed to a human queue instead of retried forever, and any failure that could cause harm if repeated triggers a safe stop rather than a blind continuation. The opposite of good error handling is silent failure — an automation that swallows an exception and reports success anyway, or one that retries indefinitely and floods a downstream system. Mature automation programs treat error paths as first-class design work, not an afterthought bolted on after an incident.