# M12.2 — Vector Gateway Search Reliability & Circuit Breaker Hotfix

```text
STATUS: COMPLETE (application-only)
PRODUCTION: no nginx / env / FPM / Redis / Horizon changes required
```

## Root cause

`VectorGatewayClient::searchByFileContents()` tripped the global circuit on **any** HTTP failure or thrown exception **before** `AiArtworkVectorSearchService` could run `searchByUrl()`. The fallback then hit `guardCircuit()` and failed immediately. Intermittent 502s (~0.23–0.55s) match fail-fast circuit-open, not cold 1.5–3s searches.

4xx from the file endpoint also opened the circuit.

## Circuit policy

- Combined similar-ai starts only if the circuit is **closed**.
- File search, then URL fallback. **Neither method trips or guards the circuit.**
- After **both** fail, trip only if **every** gateway failure is circuit-worthy.
- Successful fallback **leaves the circuit closed**.
- TTL remains **30s**. Search timeouts remain 2s/6s, retries 0.

Circuit-worthy: connection/timeout, HTTP 408/429/5xx.  
Not: 400/401/403/404/409/422 and other input 4xx.

## Deploy

`bash ./sync.sh` only. Do not reload nginx. Do not clear the circuit key.