Clay Reliability Patterns

Overview

Production reliability patterns for Clay data enrichment pipelines. Clay's async enrichment model, credit-based billing, and dependency on 150+ external data providers require specific resilience strategies: credit budget circuit breakers, webhook delivery tracking, dead letter queues for failed batches, and graceful degradation when Clay is unavailable.

Prerequisites

• Clay integration in production or pre-production
• Redis or similar for state tracking
• Understanding of Clay's async enrichment model
• Monitoring infrastructure (see clay-observability)

Instructions

Step 1: Credit Budget Circuit Breaker

Stop processing when credit burn exceeds budget to prevent runaway costs:

// src/clay/circuit-breaker.ts
class CreditCircuitBreaker {
  private state: 'closed' | 'open' | 'half-open' = 'closed';
  private dailyCreditsUsed = 0;
  private failureCount = 0;
  private lastFailureAt: Date | null = null;
  private readonly cooldownMs: number;

  constructor(
    private dailyLimit: number,
    private failureThreshold: number = 5,
    cooldownMinutes: number = 15,
  ) {
    this.cooldownMs = cooldownMinutes * 60 * 1000;
  }

  canProcess(estimatedCredits: number): { allowed: boolean; reason?: string } {
    // Check circuit state
    if (this.state === 'open') {
      // Check if cooldown has elapsed
      if (this.lastFailureAt && Date.now() - this.lastFailureAt.getTime() > this.cooldownMs) {
        this.state = 'half-open';
        console.log('Circuit breaker: half-open (testing)');
      } else {
        return { allowed: false, reason: `Circuit OPEN. Cooldown until ${new Date(this.lastFailureAt!.getTime() + this.cooldownMs).toISOString()}` };
      }
    }

    // Check budget
    if (this.dailyCreditsUsed + estimatedCredits > this.dailyLimit) {
      return { allowed: false, reason: `Daily credit limit reached: ${this.dailyCreditsUsed}/${this.dailyLimit}` };
    }

    return { allowed: true };
  }

  recordSuccess(creditsUsed: number) {
    this.dailyCreditsUsed += creditsUsed;
    if (this.state === 'half-open') {
      this.state = 'closed';
      this.failureCount = 0;
      console.log('Circuit breaker: closed (recovered)');
    }
  }

  recordFailure() {
    this.failureCount++;
    this.lastFailureAt = new Date();
    if (this.failureCount >= this.failureThreshold) {
      this.state = 'open';
      console.error(`Circuit breaker: OPEN after ${this.failureCount} failures`);
    }
  }

  resetDaily() {
    this.dailyCreditsUsed = 0;
  }
}

Step 2: Dead Letter Queue for Failed Submissions

// src/clay/dead-letter-queue.ts
interface DLQEntry {
  row: Record<string, unknown>;
  error: string;
  webhookUrl: string;
  failedAt: string;
  retryCount: number;
  maxRetries: number;
}

class ClayDLQ {
  private entries: DLQEntry[] = [];

  addToQueue(row: Record<string, unknown>, error: string, webhookUrl: string): void {
    this.entries.push({
      row,
      error,
      webhookUrl,
      failedAt: new Date().toISOString(),
      retryCount: 0,
      maxRetries: 3,
    });
    console.warn(`DLQ: Added row (${this.entries.length} total). Error: ${error}`);
  }

  async retryAll(): Promise<{ retried: number; succeeded: number; permanentFailures: number }> {
    let succeeded = 0, permanentFailures = 0;
    const remaining: DLQEntry[] = [];

    for (const entry of this.entries) {
      if (entry.retryCount >= entry.maxRetries) {
        permanentFailures++;
        continue;
      }

      try {
        const res = await fetch(entry.webhookUrl, {
          method: 'POST',
          headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
          body: JSON.stringify(entry.row),
        });

        if (res.ok) {
          succeeded++;
        } else {
          entry.retryCount++;
          remaining.push(entry);
        }
      } catch {
        entry.retryCount++;
        remaining.push(entry);
      }

      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 500)); // Pace retries
    }

    this.entries = remaining;
    return { retried: this.entries.length + succeeded + permanentFailures, succeeded, permanentFailures };
  }

  getStats() {
    return {
      pending: this.entries.length,
      byError: this.entries.reduce((acc, e) => {
        acc[e.error] = (acc[e.error] || 0) + 1;
        return acc;
      }, {} as Record<string, number>),
    };
  }
}

Step 3: Webhook Health Monitor

// src/clay/health-monitor.ts
class WebhookHealthMonitor {
  private successCount = 0;
  private failureCount = 0;
  private lastCheck: Date = new Date();
  private readonly windowMs = 5 * 60 * 1000; // 5-minute window

  record(success: boolean) {
    if (success) this.successCount++;
    else this.failureCount++;
  }

  getHealthScore(): { score: number; status: 'healthy' | 'degraded' | 'unhealthy' } {
    const total = this.successCount + this.failureCount;
    if (total === 0) return { score: 100, status: 'healthy' };

    const score = (this.successCount / total) * 100;

    // Reset window periodically
    if (Date.now() - this.lastCheck.getTime() > this.windowMs) {
      this.successCount = 0;
      this.failureCount = 0;
      this.lastCheck = new Date();
    }

    return {
      score,
      status: score > 95 ? 'healthy' : score > 80 ? 'degraded' : 'unhealthy',
    };
  }
}

Step 4: Graceful Degradation When Clay Is Down

// src/clay/fallback.ts
interface FallbackConfig {
  cacheEnrichedData: boolean;     // Cache previously enriched domains
  queueForLater: boolean;         // Queue submissions for when Clay recovers
  useLocalFallback: boolean;      // Fall back to local enrichment (limited)
}

class ClayWithFallback {
  private cache = new Map<string, Record<string, unknown>>();
  private offlineQueue: Record<string, unknown>[] = [];

  async enrichOrFallback(
    lead: Record<string, unknown>,
    webhookUrl: string,
    config: FallbackConfig,
  ): Promise<{ data: Record<string, unknown>; source: 'clay' | 'cache' | 'queued' | 'local' }> {
    // Try Clay first
    try {
      const res = await fetch(webhookUrl, {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
        body: JSON.stringify(lead),
        signal: AbortSignal.timeout(10_000),
      });

      if (res.ok) {
        return { data: lead, source: 'clay' };
      }
    } catch {
      console.warn('Clay webhook unavailable — using fallback');
    }

    // Fallback 1: Check cache for this domain
    const domain = lead.domain as string;
    if (config.cacheEnrichedData && this.cache.has(domain)) {
      return { data: { ...lead, ...this.cache.get(domain) }, source: 'cache' };
    }

    // Fallback 2: Queue for later processing
    if (config.queueForLater) {
      this.offlineQueue.push(lead);
      return { data: lead, source: 'queued' };
    }

    // Fallback 3: Minimal local enrichment (domain -> company guess)
    if (config.useLocalFallback) {
      return {
        data: { ...lead, company_name: domain.replace(/\.\w+$/, '').replace(/-/g, ' ') },
        source: 'local',
      };
    }

    return { data: lead, source: 'local' };
  }

  async drainOfflineQueue(webhookUrl: string): Promise<number> {
    let drained = 0;
    while (this.offlineQueue.length > 0) {
      const lead = this.offlineQueue.shift()!;
      try {
        await fetch(webhookUrl, {
          method: 'POST',
          headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
          body: JSON.stringify(lead),
        });
        drained++;
        await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 200));
      } catch {
        this.offlineQueue.unshift(lead); // Put back
        break;
      }
    }
    return drained;
  }
}

Step 5: Combine All Patterns

// src/clay/reliable-pipeline.ts
const circuitBreaker = new CreditCircuitBreaker(500); // 500 credits/day
const dlq = new ClayDLQ();
const healthMonitor = new WebhookHealthMonitor();

async function reliableEnrich(lead: Record<string, unknown>, webhookUrl: string): Promise<void> {
  // Check circuit breaker
  const { allowed, reason } = circuitBreaker.canProcess(6); // ~6 credits/lead
  if (!allowed) {
    dlq.addToQueue(lead, `Circuit breaker: ${reason}`, webhookUrl);
    return;
  }

  try {
    const res = await fetch(webhookUrl, {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
      body: JSON.stringify(lead),
    });

    if (res.ok) {
      circuitBreaker.recordSuccess(6);
      healthMonitor.record(true);
    } else {
      throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}`);
    }
  } catch (err) {
    circuitBreaker.recordFailure();
    healthMonitor.record(false);
    dlq.addToQueue(lead, (err as Error).message, webhookUrl);
  }
}

Error Handling

Resources

• Clay Community
• BullMQ Dead Letter Queue
• Circuit Breaker Pattern

Next Steps

For policy guardrails, see clay-policy-guardrails.