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GoModel dashboard failover mapping editor for a model, showing an ordered fallback model list, Add fallback model and Generate automatically buttons

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Overview

GoModel exposes failover through the failover config block, environment variables, and the Dashboard. When a request fails, GoModel can retry it against alternate models. Runtime failover uses manual rules only.

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Manual Mappings

config/failover.json is a JSON object where each primary model entry contains an ordered failover target list (array); top-level keys are not ordered:
The order-sensitive part is the array under each model entry. GoModel tries the listed candidates in order and stops on the first success. Use bare model names like gpt-4o or provider-qualified selectors like azure/gpt-4o. For env-only deployments, use inline JSON:
failover.default_mode and FAILOVER_MODE are deprecated compatibility inputs. They are accepted but ignored by runtime failover. The Dashboard can generate suggested mappings from model metadata, but suggestions must be saved as manual mappings before they affect traffic. Two ways to reach the generator in the dashboard:
  • Per model: open a model’s row on the Models page and click the shuffle icon to edit its failover mapping, then Generate automatically to populate suggested fallback models before Save.
  • For everything at once: Settings -> Failover -> Generate failover models automatically proposes mappings for every eligible model in one pass.
GoModel dashboard Settings page Failover section with Generate failover models automatically and Remove all the failover models buttons

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When It Runs

Failover is attempted only after the primary request returns:
  • 5xx
  • 429
  • model unavailable, unsupported, or not found style errors
It currently applies to translated /v1/chat/completions, /v1/responses, and /v1/messages requests, not /v1/embeddings.