Glossary
Agent Retry Logic
The strategy for automatically re-attempting failed operations, including conditions, delays, and limits to balance reliability with resource consumption.
What is Agent Retry Logic?
Retry logic handles transient failures like network timeouts or temporary service unavailability without requiring manual intervention. Common patterns include exponential backoff (increasing delays between attempts), jitter (randomized delays to prevent thundering herd), and circuit breakers (stopping retries after sustained failures). Proper retry logic distinguishes retryable errors from permanent failures.
Poorly designed retry logic can amplify failures, waste resources on hopeless attempts, or mask underlying issues. Best practices include retry budgets, idempotency requirements, and telemetry for retry pattern analysis.
Example
When a payment API call fails, the agent retries with exponential backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, giving up after 15 seconds total and logging the failure for operator review.
How Signet addresses this
Signet monitors retry patterns as reliability indicators, with excessive retries signaling potential integration issues. Agents can configure retry policies with Signet tracking retry-to-success ratios.
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