Retries

Configure automatic retry attempts for failed backend requests.

Attaches to: Route

Route

Note

Agentgateway supports more than one configuration style. Where a feature can also be configured in the simplified llm or mcp modes, the examples on this page show each option in tabs. For more information, see Routing-based configuration.

When a backend request fails, agentgateway can be configured to retry Retries can be configured with backoff strategies and specific conditions for when to retry. the request. When a retry is attempted, a different backend will be preferred (if possible).

Simplified (MCP)Routing-based

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://agentgateway.dev/schema/config
mcp:
  port: 3000
  policies:
    retry:
      # total number of attempts allowed.
      # Note: 1 attempt implies no retries; the initial attempt is included in the count.
      attempts: 3
      # Optional; if set, a delay between each additional attempt
      backoff: 500ms
      # A list of HTTP response codes to consider retry-able.
      # In addition, retries are always permitted if the request to a backend was never started.
      codes: [429, 500, 503]
  targets:
    - name: everything
      stdio:
        cmd: npx
        args: ['@modelcontextprotocol/server-everything']
yaml
# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://agentgateway.dev/schema/config
gateways:
  default:
    port: 3000
routes:
  - policies:
      retry:
        # total number of attempts allowed.
        # Note: 1 attempt implies no retries; the initial attempt is included in the count.
        attempts: 3
        # Optional; if set, a delay between each additional attempt
        backoff: 500ms
        # A list of HTTP response codes to consider retry-able.
        # In addition, retries are always permitted if the request to a backend was never started.
        codes: [429, 500, 503]
    backends:
      - host: localhost:8080

When a request has retries enabled and an HTTP body, the request body will be buffered. If the total body size exceeds a threshold size, retries are disabled.