lighthouse-incident

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{
  "root_cause": "ingestion_cert_expiry",
  "methodology": "Investigation followed systematic evidence gathering: (1) Queried system status to understand current state, (2) Retrieved anomaly timeline to identify first failure event (TLS_CERT_EXPIRED at 17:59:38Z), (3) Analyzed error summary showing 129 total events with 2 CRITICAL on ingestion as the earliest, (4) Queried certificate_registry to confirm expired certificate status, (5) Retrieved system topology to validate dependency chain hypothesis, (6) Consulted certificate-renewal runbook for correct recovery action ordering, (7) Executed 5-step recovery sequence in strict order, (8) Verified recovery via system status and metrics endpoints.",
  "failure_chain": [
    "ingestion",
    "preprocessing",
    "analysis",
    "results-store"
  ],
  "incident_report": "## Executive Summary\n\nLIGHTHOUSE distributed pipeline experienced a P1 cascading failure initiated by TLS certificate expiration on the ingestion subsystem. The incident began at 2026-03-03T17:59:38Z when the ingestion.api certificate (expired 2026-02-26) caused all 47 data sources to be rejected. The failure propagated downstream through preprocessing → analysis → results-store, causing complete observation processing halt.\n\n## Root Cause Analysis\n\n**Primary Root Cause:** ingestion_cert_expiry\n- TLS certificate for ingestion.api (ingest.lighthouse.internal) expired on 2026-02-26\n- Certificate last rotated 2025-02-26 (365 days prior)\n- No auto-rotation enabled; no rotation reminder sent\n\n**Evidence:**\n- First anomaly: 2026-03-03T17:59:38Z - TLS_CERT_EXPIRED (CRITICAL)\n- Certificate registry query confirms status: EXPIRED\n- All 47 data sources reported connection refused within 90 seconds of expiry\n\n## Impact Assessment\n\n- 4 subsystems affected in cascade: ingestion, preprocessing, analysis, results-store\n- Complete observation ingestion halt from 18:05 to recovery time\n- Downstream subsystems starved due to hard dependency chain with backpressure\n- Incident duration: ~6 hours before automated escalation\n\n## Recovery Timeline\n\nFollowing the certificate renewal runbook (ORDER MATTERS):\n1. rotate_tls_certificate on ingestion - restored TLS termination\n2. notify_data_sources on ingestion - signaled 47 sources to reconnect\n3. reset_starvation_state on preprocessing - cleared accumulated timeout states\n4. reload_pipeline on analysis - restarted halted analysis workers\n5. accept_backfill_mode on results-store - enabled high-throughput for data gap\n\nAll 5 recovery actions executed successfully. Core pipeline (4/6 subsystems) now healthy.\n\n## Prevention Recommendations\n\n1. Enable auto_rotation for all TLS certificates (currently disabled)\n2. Implement rotation reminders 30/14/7 days before expiry\n3. Add monitoring alert for certificate expiry within 30 days\n4. Consider shorter certificate lifetimes with automated rotation\n5. Add circuit breaker patterns to prevent starvation cascades",
  "recovery_script": "#!/usr/bin/env python3\n# LIGHTHOUSE Incident Recovery Script\n# Root Cause: ingestion TLS certificate expiry\n# Failure Chain: ingestion → preprocessing → analysis → results-store\n\nimport requests\nimport sys\n\nAPI_BASE = 'https://api.clawdiators.ai/api/v1/matches/b258c7b7-31fd-40d1-a518-87afa8c2fd6c/services/lighthouse-api'\nAUTH_HEADER = {'Authorization': 'Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>'}\n\nRECOVERY_STEPS = [\n    {'subsystem': 'ingestion', 'action': 'rotate_tls_certificate', 'params': {}},\n    {'subsystem': 'ingestion', 'action': 'notify_data_sources', 'params': {}},\n    {'subsystem': 'preprocessing', 'action': 'reset_starvation_state', 'params': {}},\n    {'subsystem': 'analysis', 'action': 'reload_pipeline', 'params': {}},\n    {'subsystem': 'results-store', 'action': 'accept_backfill_mode', 'params': {}}\n]\n\ndef execute_recovery():\n    for i, step in enumerate(RECOVERY_STEPS, 1):\n        try:\n            resp = requests.post(\n                f'{API_BASE}/system/recover',\n                headers={**AUTH_HEADER, 'Content-Type': 'application/json'},\n                json=step\n            )\n            result = resp.json()\n            if result.get('success'):\n                print(f'Step {i}: {step[\"action\"]} on {step[\"subsystem\"]} - SUCCESS')\n            else:\n                print(f'Step {i}: {step[\"action\"]} on {step[\"subsystem\"]} - FAILED: {result}')\n                sys.exit(1)\n        except Exception as e:\n            print(f'Step {i}: ERROR - {e}')\n            sys.exit(1)\n    print('\\nAll recovery steps completed successfully!')\n\nif __name__ == '__main__':\n    execute_recovery()\n",
  "root_cause_evidence": "The incident timeline shows the first critical event at 2026-03-03T17:59:38Z: ingestion subsystem logged TLS_CERT_EXPIRED. The certificate_registry table confirms ingestion.api certificate (domain: ingest.lighthouse.internal) expired on 2026-02-26 with status 'EXPIRED'. The certificate was last rotated 2025-02-26 with no auto_rotation enabled (auto_rotation: 0) and no rotation reminder sent (rotation_reminder_sent: 0). Following the TLS expiration, all 47 data sources reported connection refused (18:00:59), and observation ingestion rate dropped to zero (18:05:17).",
  "recovery_actions_taken": [
    {
      "action": "rotate_tls_certificate",
      "params": {},
      "result": "success",
      "subsystem": "ingestion"
    },
    {
      "action": "notify_data_sources",
      "params": {},
      "result": "success",
      "subsystem": "ingestion"
    },
    {
      "action": "reset_starvation_state",
      "params": {},
      "result": "success",
      "subsystem": "preprocessing"
    },
    {
      "action": "reload_pipeline",
      "params": {},
      "result": "success",
      "subsystem": "analysis"
    },
    {
      "action": "accept_backfill_mode",
      "params": {},
      "result": "success",
      "subsystem": "results-store"
    }
  ],
  "failure_chain_reasoning": "The system topology shows hard dependencies with backpressure propagation: ingestion → preprocessing → analysis → results-store. When ingestion's TLS certificate expired, it rejected all incoming connections from 47 data sources. This caused preprocessing to starve (19:00:16 - PREPROCESSING_STARVATION), which starved analysis (19:22:04 - ANALYSIS_BUFFER_EXHAUSTED), which caused results-store to have no new results to write (20:00:58 - WRITE_RATE_ZERO). The cascade propagated downstream exactly matching the dependency graph."
}