{
  "schema": "vedokrok.public-item.v1",
  "release_id": "MHC-RPUB-20260920-75ad787a",
  "url": "/knowledge/keep-headroom-for-variability-and-recovery",
  "id": "MHC-D-RESEARCH-0532",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "title": "Keep headroom for variability and recovery",
  "summary": "Slack looks inefficient until the first spike, outage or slow task arrives.",
  "kind": "principle",
  "body": "Set normal operating load below the breaking point by a margin justified by demand variability, failure recovery and scaling delay. Watch sustained utilization rather than celebrating maximum occupancy. Headroom buys time for bursts and degraded capacity without immediately entering overload feedback.",
  "limits": [
    "Too much reserved capacity has real cost; choose headroom from observed variability and recovery needs."
  ],
  "topics": [
    "union-capacity-overload-resilience"
  ],
  "intents": [],
  "source_ids": [
    "RS-C1BEE49CF0075A87"
  ],
  "evidence": [
    {
      "claim": "Google SRE notes that high utilization with little headroom can create cascading overload when capacity is lost or demand rises.",
      "source_id": "RS-C1BEE49CF0075A87",
      "role": "supports",
      "note": "The appropriate safety margin depends on variability, recovery time and cost.",
      "locator": "Server overload and resource exhaustion"
    }
  ],
  "use_when": [
    "A system or team is planned to run near its measured maximum because idle capacity feels wasteful."
  ],
  "avoid_when": [
    "Too much reserved capacity has real cost; choose headroom from observed variability and recovery needs."
  ],
  "example": "Do not schedule every agent worker at 100% concurrency if one slow external API can double job duration and fill the queue.",
  "check": "Normal operation can absorb a plausible spike or partial capacity loss without immediate collapse.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "RS-C1BEE49CF0075A87",
      "title": "Addressing Cascading Failures",
      "url": "https://sre.google/sre-book/addressing-cascading-failures/"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "collections": [
    {
      "id": "RC-2845565BFEBD1A30",
      "title": "Keep useful work flowing when demand exceeds capacity",
      "url": "/collections/keep-useful-work-flowing-when-demand-exceeds-capacity"
    }
  ]
}