What does "error budget" mean in programming?
error budget is one of the most common terms in software development. This guide explains what it means, how it is used in practice, and why it matters, with real examples from the developer world.
Definition
The acceptable amount of downtime or errors allowed within a given period, derived from an SLO. If your SLO is 99.9% availability, your error budget is 0.1% — about 8.7 hours per year. When the error budget is exhausted, the team must prioritize reliability over new features until the budget recovers.
Example
"We burned through our error budget in two weeks after the database migration — new feature work is on hold until reliability improves."
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