# Netflix/SimianArmy

Tools for keeping your cloud operating in top form. Chaos Monkey is a resiliency tool that helps applications tolerate random instance failures.

Repository: https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/simianarmy
Language: Java
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Archived: true
Last push: 2018-12-18T09:29:22+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5171, "days_push": 2815, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7981, forks 1114 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:10.516903+00:00)

## What it is
A retired Netflix open-source suite of cloud resiliency tools, best known for Chaos Monkey, which randomly terminates cloud instances to verify that applications can tolerate random failures. The suite also included Janitor Monkey for cleaning up unused cloud resources and Conformity Monkey for enforcing cloud best-practice rules, and its functionality has since been split into standalone projects (netflix/chaosmonkey, Spinnaker's Swabbie).

## Use cases
- randomly terminate instances to test if my app survives failures
- chaos engineering tool for aws
- verify service resiliency against instance outages
- automatically clean up unused cloud resources
- find and delete orphaned snapshots and unattached volumes
- enforce cloud infrastructure best practices

## When to choose
- You maintain an existing legacy Simian Army deployment and need the original source
- You want to study the original Netflix chaos engineering implementation for reference

## When to avoid
- Any new chaos engineering need - use Netflix's standalone chaosmonkey service instead
- You need Janitor Monkey-style resource cleanup - use Spinnaker's Swabbie instead
- You expect bug fixes or compatibility with modern AWS APIs - the project was retired and unmaintained since 2018

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: abandoned
- function: testing, cloud, monitoring
- domain: cloud-computing, testing
- platform: jvm, cloud
- tags: chaos-engineering, resiliency, fault-injection, aws, resource-cleanup, netflix-oss, retired-project, java, devops, linux

## Member repositories
- Netflix/SimianArmy (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:10.516903+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:32:34.598434+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:10.516903+00:00, sha b7aaa1a6df5f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.