Blast radius containment — pause affected campaigns only

When a campaign starts generating complaint spikes, the correct response is to pause that campaign — not halt the entire email system. A queue worker that can only be stopped globally means that pausing one broken campaign takes down order confirmations, password resets, and MFA codes simultaneously. NIST SP 800-53 IR-4 (Incident Handling) requires that incident containment minimizes collateral impact. The Campaign Orchestration & Sequencing Audit verifies sequence management; this check verifies that the pause mechanism is fine-grained enough to contain an incident without collateral damage.

Add a campaign status check at the start of each job in the queue worker, before any send logic runs:

async function processEmailJob(job: Job) {
  const campaign = await db.campaign.findUnique({ where: { id: job.data.campaignId } })
  if (campaign?.status === 'paused') {
    return { skipped: true, reason: 'campaign paused' }
  }
  // proceed with send
}

Wire a PATCH /api/campaigns/:id endpoint that sets status: 'paused' without requiring a code deploy. A pause mechanism that requires a redeploy or infrastructure restart does not satisfy this check.

• ID: operational-resilience-email.incident-response.blast-radius-containment

• Severity: high

• What to look for: Enumerate all campaign-level control mechanisms: a paused or status flag on individual campaign records, an API endpoint or admin action that sets this flag, and queue worker logic that checks the flag before processing a job. Count the number of these 3 components present. The Campaign Orchestration & Sequencing Audit verifies sequence management — this check verifies that incident response does not require a full system halt.

• Pass criteria: A campaign can be paused individually without affecting other campaigns in under 60 seconds. The pause mechanism is operable without a code deploy (e.g., a database flag checked by the worker, admin UI action, or API call). The worker must check the campaign status before processing each job — not after. Do NOT pass when the only pause mechanism requires a code deploy or infrastructure restart.

• Fail criteria: The only way to stop a problematic campaign is to halt the entire queue worker or stop all email sending. No per-campaign pause mechanism exists. Or the pause requires a code change and redeploy.

• Skip (N/A) when: The system only ever runs one campaign at a time and a full pause is equivalent — confirmed by the application architecture.

• Detail on fail: "No per-campaign pause flag — stopping one campaign requires halting all queue workers" or "Campaign status is managed in code only — a pause requires a code change and redeploy"

• Remediation: Add a status check in the queue worker:

  async function processEmailJob(job: Job) {
    const campaign = await db.campaign.findUnique({ where: { id: job.data.campaignId } })
    if (campaign?.status === 'paused') {
      // Return without processing — job will be retried later or discarded
      return { skipped: true, reason: 'campaign paused' }
    }
    // proceed with send
  }
  

  Wire a PATCH /api/campaigns/:id endpoint that allows setting status: 'paused' without a deploy.