When DeepSeek goes down, how can automated tasks keep their completed work?

Keep enough of the task state to resume work

Keep the pending task list, generated files, failed step and error time together. If a batch contains several inputs, record each one's state. A single 'failed' status makes it difficult to tell which items finished and which never started.

Retain only the information needed for recovery, with credentials stored separately from ordinary outputs. If earlier steps already organized or converted material, preserve those results. They reduce rework and provide a reference for checking that resumed outputs have no missing pages or misplaced content.

Distinguish reading from external writes before retrying

For a step that only creates a local draft, check whether a complete file already exists before repeating it. For a step that submitted something to an external system, inspect the actual record there first. An incomplete response does not prove that the target system did nothing.

Give each task a recognizable identifier and check for an existing result when resuming. If the destination's state is still unclear, pause that item and record what needs confirmation. This helps prevent a retry from creating duplicate submissions or overwriting another result.

Decide whether to wait or use another approach

Consider the deadline, completed work and whether the remaining steps depend on the unavailable service. If you switch to another model or manual work, apply the original acceptance criteria and record the change in approach. Otherwise, differences in formatting or judgments within a batch can become hard to explain.

Check results with a fixed input

Suppose batch A has saved results, B timed out with an unknown write outcome, and C has not started. Read B’s target records using its task ID before retrying; do not repeat A, and start C separately. Rerunning every batch may duplicate submissions. No DeepSeek call or outage simulation was performed; this is a recovery example for ambiguous timeouts.