vercel/async-retry

Vercel's async-retry is a small JavaScript library that automatically re-runs a failed task until it either succeeds or hits a limit you set. If you've ever had code that occasionally fails because a server was slow or a network connection hiccupped, this library handles the "try again" logic for you without writing messy loops or manual timers. You wrap your task in a function and pass it to the library. If anything in that function throws an error, the library waits a moment and tries again. By default it retries up to 10 times, with each wait getting progressively longer (starting at 1 second and doubling each time). You can also set a hard stop: if your function encounters a problem it knows won't fix itself on retry, like a 403 Unauthorized response, it can call a "bail" function to immediately abort the whole process instead of wasting time on pointless retries. This is useful for any developer building apps that talk to external services. If your app pulls data from a third-party API that occasionally times out, or uploads files to cloud storage and the connection briefly drops, this library makes sure those operations don't just fail and frustrate your users. Instead of writing custom error-handling code every time, you get a clean, battle-tested retry mechanism in a few lines. A couple of design choices stand out. The library builds on top of another well-established project called node-retry, so the retry timing logic is proven rather than improvised from scratch. It also randomizes the wait times by default, which sounds odd but actually helps: when many services fail at once and all retry at the exact same interval, they can overwhelm the recovering server. Randomizing the intervals spreads the load out naturally.