--- title: Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do... description: Most resiliency discussions center on retries, timeouts, and circuit breakers, but compensating transactions are an equally important pattern for recovery... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do isn’t retry | daily.dev og:description: Most resiliency discussions center on retries, timeouts, and circuit breakers, but compensating transactions are an equally important pattern for recovery... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/5DzQoPjRI.png og:image:alt: Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do isn’t retry og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do isn’t retry **[ITNEXT](https://daily.dev/sources/itnext)** · 2 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Most resiliency discussions center on retries, timeouts, and circuit breakers, but compensating transactions are an equally important pattern for recovery after failure. Using a real-world payment terminal example, the post explains how a compensating transaction (like a reversal) corrects the effects of an action whose outcome is unknown, rather than trying to determine exactly what happened. The pattern applies broadly in distributed systems: releasing inventory after a failed order, refunding payments after fulfillment failures, or canceling reservations on timeout. True resiliency means accepting failures will happen and having a corrective plan, not just preventing them. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [3 Resilience Patterns That Keep a Backend Service Up When Its Dependencies Aren't](https://daily.dev/posts/3-resilience-patterns-that-keep-a-backend-service-up-when-its-dependencies-aren-t-by1axueza) · The T-Shaped Dev · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Event Sourcing: compensation – the simple way out when things go wrong](https://daily.dev/posts/event-sourcing-compensation-the-simple-way-out-when-things-go-wrong-feli1diyp) · We Are .NET · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#distributed-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/distributed-systems) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do isn’t retry","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri"},"datePublished":"2026-07-26T17:13:57.084Z","dateModified":"2026-07-27T22:23:10.198Z","description":"Most resiliency discussions center on retries, timeouts, and circuit breakers, but compensating transactions are an equally important pattern for recovery...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8fc19920b0845b39153905166eccc984?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8fc19920b0845b39153905166eccc984?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"ITNEXT","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ITNEXT","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/itnext2","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/itnext"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/sometimes-the-most-resilient-thing-a-system-can-do-isn-t-retry-5dzqopjri","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"distributed-systems","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ITNEXT","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/itnext"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Sometimes, the most resilient thing a system can do isn’t retry"}]} ```