What is Retry, Backoff & Jitter?
Retrying failed calls after growing delays with random spread, so a fleet does not stampede a recovering service. Exponential backoff plus jitter turns synchronized thundering herds into gentle background noise.
Related terms
Dead-Letter Queue
A holding area for messages that exhausted every retry, preserved with full context for inspection. Dead letters stop poison events from blocking healthy traffic and give operators a deliberate replay path.
Webhook Delivery Attempts
The provider retry schedule for webhooks: immediate attempts, spaced retries, then parked failures after a budget. BYOB run histories mirror this pattern, tracking each attempt so operators see exactly where delivery stands.
Rate Limiting & 429s
The server answering 429 Too Many Requests when clients exceed quota, with Retry-After saying when to return. Limits protect shared databases and run histories from one noisy client starving everyone else.
REST Resource Design
Modeling an API as nouns with stable URLs — /projects/:id/messages — instead of action endpoints. Resource design makes caching, auth scoping, and client reasoning predictable across every route.
Idempotent HTTP Verbs
GET, PUT, and DELETE produce the same result when safely retried; POST does not promise that. BYOB server routes use idempotent verbs for mutations clients may repeat after network timeouts.
API Versioning
Evolving an API without breaking existing clients: versioned paths or headers, additive changes first, removals on a schedule. Versioning is a promise that yesterday’s integration keeps working tomorrow.