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Error Handling

The intention of good error handling is as follows:

  • To gracefully handle errors which occur in such a way that the user expects.
    • The user should see a polite message and be caused as little disruption as possilbe.
    • When the error can be remedied by user action, such action should be as simple as possible and be described clearly to them.
  • To notify a service (we're using Bugsnag) in such a way that optimises the process of triage and bugfixing.
    • Details of the error, including the likely cause and information on the user journey leading to the error should be sent to the error reporting service.

Error prevention

Better than handling errors is preventing them. User facing errors should be minimised by "catching" errors at build time using

  • Strict type checking (Typescript, Graphql code generation, tRPC)
  • Visual regression tests (Percy)
  • Unit and integration tests

OakError

We have extended the Error class to allow custom data to be passed when throwing the exception.

Including context where available

Context helps us debug by identifying conditions that might allow us to reproduce the error.

  • In a server side request handler this would include:
    • Url and method
    • Any headers, query, and payload

Catch and rethrow

Catch errors, and if the error isn't an instance of OakError or if there's useful information to be added at this layer, then throw a new OakError with the original error as originalError. When thowing the new OakError we are forced to provide a code, which should indicate the cause of the error.

Error codes

Each error code should represent a specific cause for an exception to be thrown. They are of the form [section]/[reason], e.g. auth/token-expired. If the specific cause is unknown, the "reason" should be "unknown". E.g. auth/token-error-unknown. NB We should consider adapting this format to include "action". E.g. auth/refresh-token/unknown

  • As far as we know, what caused the error?
  • Can the error be remedied by user action?
    • E.g. "form validation" errors can be remedied by inputting different values
  • Is this an error which we need to be notified of?
    • E.g. "token expired" errors don't need to alert us, since it is expected that they will happen
    • Likewise, "form validation" errors, don't need to alert us.