A retry answers a narrow question: might the same operation succeed if I attempt it again?
Recovery has a harder job. It must bring the original business operation to a known, valid outcome after something went wrong. Getting there may require another attempt, a status lookup, resuming from persisted state, or compensation. If the system cannot resolve the operation safely, it must hand it to a person.
This difference matters as soon as an AI workflow does more than return text. If it retrieves data, calls tools, writes state, or continues after the HTTP request ends, adding three retries around the workflow is not a recovery design. It is three more chances to spend money, repeat a side effect, or lose track of what already happened.
A retry repeats an attempt
Suppose a support feature performs this workflow:
