hinted-handoff · shipping

Hinted handoff

Hinted handoff retains information about an update missed by an intended replica and attempts to deliver it later.

Related Observatory article: Hinted handoff on hesela.com

Cassandra 5.0.0 coordinators store hints for unavailable or timed-out replicas; delivery is best effort. [1] Its max_hint_window limits hint generation during unavailability, not a universal hint lifetime or replay deadline. [2]

Relations

related

anti-entropy-repair, read-repair

Limitations

• An empty hint queue does not prove that replicas have received every missed mutation. [1, 2]

Citations

1. Apache Cassandra 5.0.0: Hints (accessed 2026-10-13)
2. Apache Cassandra 5.0.0: max_hint_window configuration (accessed 2026-10-13)
3. Replica repair: what has actually converged? (accessed 2026-10-13)

JSON: /data/terms/hinted-handoff.json