CCARF Practice Question

Paper 5 · Question 6

D5 Context Management & Reliability · Paper 5

[Scenario: Multi-agent Research System] The document analysis subagent encounters a corrupted PDF file that it cannot parse. When designing the system’s error handling, what is the most effective way to handle this failure? Which approach is most effective?

• A.Return an error with context to the coordinator agent, allowing it to decide how to proceed.
• B.Silently skip the corrupted document and continue processing the remaining files to avoid interrupting the workflow.
• C.Automatically retry parsing the document three times with exponential backoff before reporting a failure.
• D.Throw an exception that terminates the entire research workflow.

Show answer & explanations

Correct answer: A

A: Returning an error with context to the coordinator is the most effective approach because it lets the coordinator make an informed decision—skip the file, try an alternative parsing method, or notify the user—while maintaining visibility into the failure.

B: A silent skip looks like the file was read and contained nothing. The coordinator cannot retry, swap in another source, or tell the user the document was unreadable.

C: A corrupted or password-protected PDF is not transient. Retries with backoff fail the same way and delay the report.

D: Aborting the whole run throws away every other document that parsed.

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