Playbook

Debugging Performance Backpressure

How to diagnose resource exhaustion in streams, queues, and hot paths.

Pattern

A producer ignores downstream capacity and converts normal load into memory or metrics pressure.

warningSymptoms

  • arrow_rightWorker heap grows until kill
  • arrow_rightMetrics series count spikes
  • arrow_rightA single tenant starves shared resources

searchWhere to look

  • arrow_rightStream write return values
  • arrow_rightDrain handling
  • arrow_rightLimiter scopes
  • arrow_rightTelemetry dimensions

buildCommon fixes

  • arrow_rightAwait drain signals
  • arrow_rightBound buffers
  • arrow_rightScope shared resources
  • arrow_rightMeasure peak memory in tests

Practice challenges

No ready practice incident is mapped yet.