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SERVICE-MESH5 MIN READ

Traffic Policy Is a Contract, Not a Tweak

Describe traffic policies as contracts between callers, workloads, and mesh operators.

Traffic management is a contract. The proxy enforces behavior that callers feel. The route contract VirtualService rules decide which destination receives requests and under which match conditions. Header routes, weighted routes, and mirrors are not just operations tools; they change who sees which behavior. The resilience contract Timeouts, retries, circuit breaking, load balancing, and outlier handling define how a caller waits, repeats, and gives up. Those choices can improve resilience or amplify failure. The review contract Every mesh policy should have an owner, intent, scope, verification metric, and rollback condition. Without those, the mesh becomes an invisible change surface.

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