What is an exception queue?
An exception queue is the list of cases a workflow could not finish safely: missing fields, low confidence, a customer who asked for a human, a tool error. Someone clears it. A dead-letter queue is the same idea when the message failed and is waiting to be retried or discarded.
Also called: dead-letter queue
In plain English
The happy path sends the reminder. The weird path lands in a list with the reason. If that list has no owner, the weird cases vanish or pile up until a customer calls. Escalation can drop a live conversation into this queue. The queue is not a second bot. The queue is the inbox for robots that got stuck. If nobody opens it, it is a trash can. Name an owner, even if the owner is you. Open it daily at the start. Each item needs a next step: fix the data, send it yourself, or discard it. A queue that only grows will eventually hide a customer who has been waiting since Thursday. If the same error repeats, stop clearing it one by one and fix the step. Heroics are how a broken field survives for months.
How an owner would use it
Name who looks at the queue and how often. Write what they do with each reason. If the queue is always huge, the happy path is wrong, not the person.
Common mistakes
An exception queue that emails nobody is a trash can. Retrying every exception automatically will send the bad cases. Do not mix test failures and customer failures in a way you cannot filter. Dead letters need a decision: retry, fix the data, or drop. Silence is not a decision.
A worked example
A wedding florist
Missing delivery doors wait in one list
This is an illustration, not a customer result. Orders with a venue and a time draft a confirmation. Orders missing the door or the contact land in a list the owner checks at lunch. They do not get a guessed dock. The list is empty by midafternoon or the owner knows why.
Related terms
Prompts and guides
Questions owners ask
What is an exception queue?
It is the holding list for workflow cases that should not continue automatically, waiting for a person.
How do I run an exception queue?
Give it an owner and a time of day. Each item needs a reason. Fix the source data or handle it by hand, and do not auto-retry the dangerous ones.
What is a dead-letter queue?
It is where a message goes after delivery or processing failed. You decide whether to retry or discard. It should be visible.
Product guides are on AI apps for business.