What does a liveness health check endpoint do?

• A. Checks that the endpoint is deployed and responds to simple HTTP calls.
• B. Tests the database connection health only.
• C. Verifies that all dependencies are healthy.
• D. Wipes and resets the application on failure.

Answer: (A)

A liveness health check endpoint is meant to prove that the application process is alive and able to respond to requests. It should be lightweight and fast, typically a simple HTTP GET to a path like /live or /health that returns a 200 OK when the app is running. This lets orchestration systems know when a container or service has crashed or become unresponsive so it can restart it promptly. It does not try to test databases, verify every dependency, or perform destructive actions; those are heavier checks or separate health checks meant for readiness or full health assessment. So, the option that describes confirming the endpoint is deployed and responds to simple HTTP calls captures the intended behavior of a liveness probe.