Retries Are Policy Decisions

A retry is not a technical detail. A retry is a choice about authority, risk, and consequence.

Any system that retries silently executes policy without consent.

I. The Fiction of “Just Try Again”

Many systems retry because:

networks are unreliable

services fail transiently

engineers want resilience

This frames retries as engineering hygiene.

It is not.

Retrying changes outcomes.

II. Retrying Alters Legal Reality

A retry decides:

whether failure is final

whether denial becomes success

whether time constraints are ignored

whether limits are enforced

Each retry is a second attempt under altered conditions.

That is policy.

III. Silent Retries Destroy Accountability

When a system retries without record:

the original failure disappears

intent is obscured

responsibility is blurred

If success occurs after retries, the system reports success without context.

That is false history.

IV. Retries Must Be Explicit and Bounded

A lawful retry must be:

explicitly defined

limited in number

limited in time

recorded as separate attempts

Unlimited retries are implicit permission.

Implicit permission is uncontrolled authority.

V. Retrying Can Violate Law

Some laws care about:

timing

order

attempt count

deadlines

Retrying may:

bypass cutoffs

exceed quotas

violate fairness

distort competition

Without policy awareness, retries break compliance.

VI. Retries Must Be Replayable

Replay must reproduce:

the same failures

the same retries

in the same order

with the same outcomes

If retries depend on chance, replay fails.

Failed replay is failed audit.

VII. Retry Strategy Is Not Infrastructure

Retry strategy is often hidden in:

HTTP clients

message brokers

SDK defaults

This hides law in plumbing.

Policy must live in:

kernel

registry

versioned law

Not in libraries.

VIII. Final Conclusion

Retries are policy decisions.

A lawful system:

treats retries as explicit outcomes

records every attempt

bounds retries by declared policy

replays retries deterministically

Anything else allows systems to succeed by persistence rather than by permission.