Retry Logic

The mechanism by which an AI agent automatically retries failed operations—LLM API calls that time out, tool invocations that return errors, or retrieval queries that return no results. Good retry logic uses exponential backoff (waiting progressively longer between attempts), distinguishes between transient errors (network timeouts—retry) and permanent errors (invalid API key—don't retry), and sets maximum attempt limits to prevent infinite loops. Without retry logic, agents fail on the first hiccup; with it, they handle the intermittent failures that are normal in distributed systems.