Gemini image generation went down at 2AM and is still down at 9:22AM—and counting. For engineering leaders building AI-augmented workflows, a multi-hour AI service outage isn’t just annoying—it’s a business continuity gap. Here’s how async design, LiteLLM/OpenRouter fallbacks, and local models close it.
When the Stack Stops It’s 2:00 PM on February 9th, 2026. I’m in flow—code is shipping, tests are green, the AI assistant is humming along. Then: nothing. I can’t push or pull code—the entire AI-augmented development workflow is frozen. By 2:30 PM, service is restored. Thirty minutes of downtime. But here’s the thing: this isn’t really about GitHub. It’s about how AI-augmented development changes the calculus of vendor reliability. When your workflow depends on AI assistance maintaining context across your entire codebase, vendor downtime isn’t just inconvenient—it disrupts the exponential productivity gains that make AI development transformative. ...