With the development of science and technology,the systematization,networking and intelligentization of the social technology system gradually deepen,forming the complexity of the system.The failures of these complex systems,such as traffic jams,rumor spreading,and financial collapse,can be regarded as a kind of"1+1<2"negative emergence of system capability,which is difficult to understand directly through the reduction analysis of system components.It challenges the classical reliability theory.Research on the complex systems reliability mainly focuses on failures laws,which includes two perspectives.One is the study of system vulnerability considering failure propagation.The other is the study of system adaptability considering failure recovery.System vulnerability studies focus on exploring the internal mechanism of system collapse,namely the failure propagation mechanism.System adaptability studies focus on the capacity to adapt and recover,including the system failure recovery mechanism.Based on this,the article introduces relevant research on reliability method.