All public SlateDB APIs return slatedb::Error. The part applications should treat as stable is Error::kind(), which returns ErrorKind. The formatted message and source chain are for logs and diagnosis; they can change between releases, so they are a poor place to hang recovery logic.

In practice, this means you should branch on the kind of failure, not on the exact text.

• ErrorKind::Transaction means retry the whole transaction.
• ErrorKind::Unavailable means a dependency failed and the operation may succeed on retry.
• ErrorKind::Closed means the handle is done, and CloseReason explains why.
• ErrorKind::Invalid, ErrorKind::Data, and ErrorKind::Internal usually mean you should stop and investigate instead of retrying blindly.

See the slatedb::ErrorKind rustdoc for a complete explanation of each kind.

Error implements the standard source chain. This chain is useful for logs and for narrow diagnostics, such as checking whether a Data error came from an underlying object_store::Error::NotFound.