Introduction

Pauses write command processing on a Redis instance for a given duration using the CLIENT PAUSE ... WRITE command. Reads continue to be served normally throughout the attack.

This action targets Redis instances. Combine with Latency Check to verify that your application's timeout and retry logic handles the stalled write path correctly. For connection-level faults, use Exhaust Connections instead.

Why writes only

Redis applies the CLIENT PAUSE check to every non-master command — including CLIENT UNPAUSE itself. With CLIENT PAUSE ALL, the attack cannot be stopped early and the extension's own discovery probes (PING, INFO) are paused too. Pausing only writes keeps CLIENT UNPAUSE working (so Stop actually rolls the attack back) and leaves reads — including discovery — unaffected.

Use Cases

• Simulate a Redis instance that has stopped accepting writes to test application failover, queueing, and retry behavior.
• Verify that circuit breakers on the write path trip while read traffic continues to be served.
• Validate degraded-mode UX in applications that fall back to cached reads when writes are unavailable.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
Duration	How long to pause write commands.	30s