Feature: Centralized Error Handling & User Feedback System

[notlexius-glitch]

Problem statement

Problem

Error handling is currently inconsistent across different modules of the application. Users may receive unclear or inconsistent error messages, while developers have limited visibility into failures occurring throughout the system.

This can lead to:

• Poor user experience during failures
• Difficult debugging and issue tracking
• Repeated error-handling logic
• Inconsistent API response structures
• Increased maintenance overhead

Core Requirements

Frontend

• Global Error Boundary implementation
• Consistent error notification components
• Standardized error states for pages and forms
• User-friendly error messages
• Retry actions where applicable

Backend

• Unified API error response format
• Error classification and categorization
• Structured error logging
• Request correlation IDs for traceability
• Standardized status codes and error payloads

Developer Experience

• Shared error utility functions
• Reusable error-handling hooks/services
• Common error constants and types
• Centralized error configuration

Testing

• Unit tests for error utilities
• Integration tests for API error responses
• UI testing for error states and notifications
• Regression tests for critical workflows

Documentation

• Error-handling architecture overview
• API error response documentation
• Developer implementation guide
• Best practices and examples

Expected Benefits

• Improved user experience
• Faster debugging and issue resolution
• Reduced code duplication
• Consistent application behavior
• Better maintainability and scalability

Acceptance Criteria

• All major modules use the centralized error-handling mechanism
• Standardized API error response structure is implemented
• Frontend displays consistent error messages
• Error utilities are documented
• Appropriate test coverage is added
• Documentation is updated

Suggested Labels

• enhancement
• architecture
• backend
• frontend
• testing
• documentation
• difficulty: hard
• GSSoC

Proposed solution

Proposed Solution

Implement a centralized error management system that standardizes how errors are captured, processed, displayed, and logged across the application.

Alternatives considered

Alternative approaches considered:

1. Module-specific error handling improvements

   • Would improve individual components but would not solve inconsistency across the application.

2. Logging-only solution

   • Helps developers diagnose issues but does not improve the user experience when errors occur.

3. Frontend-only error management

   • Provides better UI feedback but leaves backend error responses inconsistent.

The proposed centralized error handling system was chosen because it addresses both frontend and backend concerns, reduces duplicated logic, improves maintainability, and provides a consistent experience for users and developers.

Scope

Other

Affects Kubernetes deployment?

No — works the same on bare metal

Are you willing to contribute?

• I can implement this if guidance is provided
• I can test this once it's built
• I'm just suggesting the idea

[github-actions]

Welcome to Kerno, and thanks for opening your first issue! 🎉

A maintainer will triage this within 48 hours. While you wait:

• 📖 Read CONTRIBUTING.md if you'd like to send a fix
• 🩺 Try kerno doctor on your own host (the README quickstart takes < 60 s)
• 💬 Discussions for questions and design talk

Tip: if you can paste output of sudo ./bin/bpf-verify (or kerno preflight when it ships) we'll diagnose 90% faster.

[notlexius-glitch]

Hi maintainers,

I would be interested in working on this feature if it aligns with the project's roadmap. I'm happy to refine the proposal further and implement it with guidance from the maintainers.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
/assign