Comparison guide
Fallback UI vs. error boundary vs. recovery path: which failure term do you need?
Use this when an app fails and you are not sure whether the AI should contain a crash, show a degraded interface, or design a way for the user to continue.
Fast answer
Fallback UI
Use Fallback UI when the product needs a useful screen or state after data, network, permission, or component failure.
Error boundary
Use Error boundary when one component or route can crash and should not take down the rest of the app.
Recovery path
Use Recovery path when users need to know what happened, what is safe, and how to continue.
Error taxonomy
Use Error taxonomy when different failure types need different messages, retries, support actions, or user fixes.
Retry policy
Use Retry policy when transient errors can be attempted again safely and with limits.
Observability
Use Observability when you need logs, events, or traces to understand what failed in production.
What to ask AI
Weak ask
Handle errors better in this app.
Exact Terms ask
Classify failures with an error taxonomy, then define error boundaries, fallback UI, retry policy, observability events, and recovery paths for each failure type.
Use the right word when
Fallback UI
The user needs a visible alternative instead of a blank, spinner, or dead end.
Error boundary
A local component crash should be isolated from the rest of the product.
Recovery path
The flow can fail but the user should be able to continue, retry, resume, or safely stop.
Error taxonomy
A single generic error message hides important differences between failures.
Related guides
Recovery path prompts for failed API flows.
Copyable recovery path prompts for failed API flows, partial success, retries, fallback UI, timeout budgets, and user-safe continuation.
AI coding agent vocabulary for robust app workflows.
AI coding agent vocabulary for fixing vibe-coded apps: statecharts, step state, transition tables, guard conditions, draft persistence, idempotency, checkpoints, fallback UI, and recovery paths.
Idempotency vs. retry policy vs. transaction boundary: what should you ask AI for?
Learn the difference between idempotency, retry policy, timeout budget, transaction boundary, and recovery path for safer AI-built app flows.
Idempotency prompt for preventing duplicate submissions.
A copyable idempotency prompt for preventing duplicate submissions, double clicks, retry side effects, repeated API calls, and duplicate records.
Common questions
Is fallback UI the same as an error boundary?
No. An error boundary catches and contains a crash. Fallback UI is what the user sees when something is missing, loading, broken, or degraded.
What should a recovery path include?
It should explain what happened, whether work is safe, what can be retried, and the next action the user can take.