Graceful degradation as a feature: building Server Sentinel

The premise

A security monitoring platform that goes dark the moment one component fails is worse than useless — it gives a false sense of safety. So in Server Sentinel, graceful degradation was a first-class requirement from day one.

Nine services, one monorepo

The system is nine microservices in a single pnpm monorepo. Each agent reports independently; a downed collector never takes the dashboard with it. A dedicated is_simulated flag lets me run full attack simulations against production paths without ever firing a real alert.

The goal: at worst, a degraded view — never a blank one.