Trace what breaks when one part of your system fails
A developer built RIPPLE, an agent that queries a map of service connections; in the demo, an Inventory failure points to three affected services and two business workflows.
Done with Custom agent
What they did
For a hackathon, the developer stored services, databases, queues, teams and workflows as a connected map. He gave an AI agent five tools to search that map. Users ask questions like 'What happens if the Inventory Service fails?' The agent traces the paths and shows them on a dashboard.
How it went
In the demo, the agent found three affected services and two workflows, ranked by a simple priority score. The author says he tested the five tools one by one.
Worth knowing
The author stresses that the priority score is a rough guide, not a real failure probability. The results only reflect the modeled map, not what would happen in a live system.
Try it yourself
Here is a list of my systems and what each depends on: [list of services, databases and their dependencies]. Build a dependency map from it. Then answer: if [service name] fails, which other services are affected, and through which chain of dependencies? Also say which business workflows are at risk. Show each path step by step. Label anything you are assuming rather than reading from my list.
Swap the highlighted [parts] for your own details.
Source: DEV Community · Narasimha Lakshmi · Oct 17, 2026
Written with AI assistance from the original post and checked against our editorial guidelines. Results are as reported by the source, not independently verified. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
