---
title: "Scale Capacity"
url: "https://docs.caracal.run/v1.0/operations/scale-capacity/"
markdown_url: "https://docs.caracal.run/markdown/v1.0/operations/scale-capacity.md"
description: "Scale from observed bottlenecks without claiming unmeasured performance or availability."
page_type: "workflow"
concepts: []
requires: []
---

# Scale Capacity

Canonical URL: https://docs.caracal.run/v1.0/operations/scale-capacity/
Markdown URL: https://docs.caracal.run/markdown/v1.0/operations/scale-capacity.md
Description: Scale from observed bottlenecks without claiming unmeasured performance or availability.
Page type: workflow
Concepts: none
Requires: none

---

Caracal publishes signals and Helm controls, but no universal throughput, latency, or availability figure. Establish a baseline with your workload. For measured reference results from the v0.2.0 validation under stated test conditions, see [Performance and Scalability](/v1.0/operations/performance-benchmarks/).

## Decision Criteria

| Signal | Investigate first |
| --- | --- |
| Database pool pressure | Slow queries, transactions, connections, I/O |
| Audit lag, DLQ, replay age | Audit write path, Redis, Postgres, replay storage |
| Gateway STS circuit | STS readiness and exchange latency |
| Revocation lag | Redis latency, pending entries, snapshot refresh |
| Readiness flapping | CPU, memory, dependencies, probes |

## Prerequisites

Collect authenticated metrics, latency, dependency metrics, logs, and repeatable load. Know storage connection/memory ceilings.

## Safe Procedure

1. Record baseline and first saturated resource.
2. Correct dependencies or slow queries before replicas.
3. Change one limit or replica count at a time.
4. Keep aggregate pools within database capacity.
5. Repeat load and compare readiness, errors, lag, DLQ, replay, and revocation.
6. Set environment thresholds from measured bounds.

Chart replica/HPA defaults are not capacity recommendations.

## Rollback

Restore the previous value if pressure or errors increase and retain both measurements.

## Next Step

Build gates in [Monitor Health and Metrics](/v1.0/operations/observability/).