Backpressure

The SDK includes built-in adaptive backpressure management that protects the Camunda cluster from overload. When the cluster returns backpressure signals (HTTP 429, 503, or RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED), the SDK automatically reduces outbound concurrency. When conditions improve, it gradually recovers — returning to full throughput with no manual intervention.

This is enabled by default with the BALANCED profile and requires no configuration. Operations that drain work from the cluster (completing jobs, failing jobs) are never throttled.

Profile	Behavior
BALANCED (default)	Adaptive concurrency gating with AIMD-style permit management and exponential backoff at floor.
LEGACY	Observe-only — records severity but never gates or queues requests.

Set the profile via the CAMUNDA_SDK_BACKPRESSURE_PROFILE environment variable.