February 2026 (buape/carbon): Delivered a stability-focused fix in the Gateway Plugin to prevent crashes caused by zombie connections. By adjusting error handling to safely ignore reconnection attempts on already closed sockets, the gateway remains responsive and resilient under edge-case scenarios. This work reduces outage risk and improves uptime for dependent services. The fix was implemented in commit 6eed6ebbd240eaf9a13f3250974c28cc7fb856f4 and accompanied by a changeset entry; co-authored by Shadow. Technologies demonstrated: defensive programming, error handling, socket lifecycle management, code review discipline, collaboration. Overall impact: lowers incident risk and improves reliability; supports business outcomes by ensuring gateway stability and uptime. Key achievements: - Stability: prevented gateway crashes from zombie connections by adjusting error handling to ignore reconnection attempts on closed sockets. - Delivered changeset entry for the reconnect crash fix and recorded commit 6eed6ebbd240eaf9a13f3250974c28cc7fb856f4. - Collaboration: worked with Shadow to validate edge-case handling and ensure robust resilience.