Chaos Engineer

What the source does

• FilesystemNone observedNo reads or writes in the source
• NetworkNone observedNo outbound calls in the source
• ShellNone observedNo commands run in the source
• DependenciesPinnedNothing floats
• SecretsNone foundNo keys in source

Five audit layers

Gates applied: no behavioural pass.

Audit 0.4.1 · source sha b8ffc4391b71 · 31 Oct 2026Report an issue or request a re-scan

• PublisherJeffallan GitHub userOwner of the repository this skill is read from
• Source folderJeffallan/claude-skills/skills/chaos-engineerThe exact folder we audited
• LicenceMITAs the repository states it
• Commit pinned for this verdictb8ffc4391b71A new audit runs when the source changes
• Repository statusNot archivedPushed today
• Sandboxed runNot runSkills are read, not executed; layer L4 is skipped

Its description: Designs chaos experiments, creates failure injection frameworks, and facilitates game day exercises for distributed systems — producing runbooks, experiment manifests, rollback procedures, and post-mortem templates. Use…

---
name: chaos-engineer
description: Designs chaos experiments, creates failure injection frameworks, and facilitates game day exercises for distributed systems — producing runbooks, experiment manifests, rollback procedures, and post-mortem templates. Use when designing chaos experiments, implementing failure injection frameworks, or conducting game day exercises. Invoke for chaos experiments, resilience testing, blast radius control, game days, antifragile systems, fault injection, Chaos Monkey, Litmus Chaos.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: https://github.com/Jeffallan
  company: https://synergetic.solutions
  version: "1.1.0"
  domain: devops
  triggers: chaos engineering, resilience testing, failure injection, game day, blast radius, chaos experiment, fault injection, Chaos Monkey, Litmus Chaos, antifragile
  role: specialist
  scope: implementation
  output-format: code
  related-skills: sre-engineer, devops-engineer, kubernetes-specialist
---

# Chaos Engineer

## When to Use This Skill

- Designing and executing chaos experiments
- Implementing failure injection frameworks (Chaos Monkey, Litmus, etc.)
- Planning and conducting game day exercises
- Building blast radius controls and safety mechanisms
- Setting up continuous chaos testing in CI/CD
- Improving system resilience based on experiment findings

## Core Workflow

1. **System Analysis** - Map architecture, dependencies, critical paths, and failure modes
2. **Experiment Design** - Define hypothesis, steady state, blast radius, and safety controls
3. **Execute Chaos** - Run controlled experiments with monitoring and quick rollback
4. **Learn & Improve** - Document findings, implement fixes, enhance monitoring
5. **Automate** - Integrate chaos testing into CI/CD for continuous resilience

## Reference Guide

Load detailed guidance based on context:

| Topic | Reference | Load When |
|-------|-----------|-----------|
| Experiments | `references/experiment-design.md` | Designing hypothesis, blast radius, rollback |
| Infrastructure | `references/infrastructure-chaos.md` | Server, network, zone, region failures |
| Kubernetes | `references/kubernetes-chaos.md` | Pod, node, Litmus, chaos mesh experiments |
| Tools & Automation | `references/chaos-tools.md` | Chaos Monkey, Gremlin, Pumba, CI/CD integration |
| Game Days | `references/game-days.md` | Planning, executing, learning from game days |

## Safety Checklist

Non-obvious constraints that must be enforced on every experiment:

- **Steady state first** — define and verify baseline metrics before injecting any failure
- **Blast radius cap** — start with the smallest possible impact scope; expand only after validation
- **Automated rollback ≤ 30 seconds** — abort path must be scripted and tested before the experiment begins
- **Single variable** — change only one failure condition at a time until behaviour is well understood
- **No production without safety nets** — customer-facing environments require circuit breakers, feature flags, or canary isolation
- **Close the loop** — every experiment must produce a written learning summary and at least one tracked improvement

## Output Templates

When implementing chaos engineering, provide:
1. Experiment design document (hypothesis, metrics, blast radius)
2. Implementation code (failure injection scripts/manifests)
3. Monitoring setup and alert configuration
4. Rollback procedures and safety controls
5. Learning summary and improvement recommendations

## Concrete Example: Pod Failure Experiment (Litmus Chaos)

The following shows a complete experiment — from hypothesis to rollback — using Litmus Chaos on Kubernetes.

### Step 1 — Define steady state and apply the experiment

```bash
# Verify baseline: p99 latency < 200ms, error rate < 0.1%
kubectl get deploy my-service -n production
kubectl top pods -n production -l app=my-service
```

### Step 2 — Create and apply a Litmus ChaosEngine manifest

```yaml
# chaos-pod-delete.yaml
apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: my-service-pod-delete
  namespace: production
spec:
  appinfo:
    appns: production
    applabel: "app=my-service"
    appkind: deployment
  # Limit blast radius: only 1 replica at a time
  engineState: active
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
    - name: pod-delete
      spec:
        components:
          env:
            - name: TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION
              value: "60"          # seconds
            - name: CHAOS_INTERVAL
              value: "20"          # delete one pod every 20s
            - name: FORCE
              value: "false"
            - name: PODS_AFFECTED_PERC
              value: "33"          # max 33% of replicas affected
```

```bash
# Apply the experiment
kubectl apply -f chaos-pod-delete.yaml

# Watch experiment status
kubectl describe chaosengine my-service-pod-delete -n production
kubectl get chaosresult my-service-pod-delete-pod-delete -n production -w
```

### Step 3 — Monitor during the experiment

```bash
# Tail application logs for errors
kubectl logs -l app=my-service -n production --since=2m -f

# Check ChaosResult verdict when complete
kubectl get chaosresult my-service-pod-delete-pod-delete \
  -n production -o jsonpath='{.status.experimentStatus.verdict}'
```

### Step 4 — Rollback / abort if steady state is violated

```bash
# Immediately stop the experiment
kubectl patch chaosengine my-service-pod-delete \
  -n production --type merge -p '{"spec":{"engineState":"stop"}}'

# Confirm all pods are healthy
kubectl rollout status deployment/my-service -n production
```

## Concrete Example: Network Latency with toxiproxy

```bash
# Install toxiproxy CLI
brew install toxiproxy   # macOS; use the binary release on Linux

# Start toxiproxy server (runs alongside your service)
toxiproxy-server &

# Create a proxy for your downstream dependency
toxiproxy-cli create -l 0.0.0.0:22222 -u downstream-db:5432 db-proxy

# Inject 300ms latency with 10% jitter — blast radius: this proxy only
t

Excerpt, first 6,000 characters of SKILL.md, verbatim from the audited commit. It is text from someone else’s repository, quoted so you can judge it before your agent reads it.

git clone https://github.com/Jeffallan/claude-skills
git -C claude-skills checkout b8ffc4391b71

Works in

1. 2026-10-31
   ✓SAFE B 89 / 100

   first audit · source b8ffc4391b71

Questions about Chaos Engineer

• github.com/Jeffallan/claude-skills/tree/main/skills/chaos-engine — the audited source at commit b8ffc4391b71 and every finding aboveObserved · 31 Oct 2026

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