A stream application receives a stream of tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements that are operating on one or more compute nodes. Each processing element has one or more stream operators. The stream application assigns one or more processing cycles to software code embedded in a tuple of the stream of tuples. The tuple obtains a first status of one or more first tuples of a set of targeted tuples to be modified by a tuple modification of a stream operator. The tuple obtains a second status of one or more second tuples of the set of targeted tuples after the stream operator performs the tuple modification. The tuple determines a potential degradation based on the first status and the second status. The tuple alters the one or more first tuples to prevent the tuple modification in response to the determined potential degradation.