🔄 pi-retry

Automatic retry for every error in pi

400/413, connection errors, credit errors, stream exhaustion — retry them all.

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Overview

This extension automatically detects and retries all errors by default, with only a tiny blacklist of known permanent failures (invalid API key, missing model, etc.).

Error Type	Retry Behavior	Use Case
Any retryable error (catch-all)	Indefinite with capped backoff	Everything else — provider hiccups, stream exhaustion, credit issues, unknown errors
HTTP 400/413	Indefinite with capped backoff, NO compaction	Transient context overflow that might resolve
Credit / payment errors	Indefinite with capped backoff	"Not Enough Credits", insufficient balance, 402
Connection errors	Indefinite with capped backoff	Network hiccups, connection drops, socket errors, stream exhaustion
Max tokens (stopReason: "length")	Auto-continue indefinitely (invisible — no prompt pollution)	Model hits output token limit mid-generation

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The Problem

By default, pi has built-in retry for some errors (rate limits, 5xx, overloaded), but:

1. 400/413 errors are treated as context overflow → triggers compaction but NO retry
2. Connection errors sometimes get only limited retries before giving up
3. Credit errors ("Not Enough Credits") are never retried
4. Stream exhaustion ("Max outbound streams") and other provider-specific errors are never retried
5. Any unknown error from a new provider is silently ignored

The Solution

This extension provides automatic infinite retry with sensible exponential backoff (2s → 4s → 8s → ... → 60s max).

Philosophy: retry EVERYTHING by default. The only things we skip are a tiny blacklist of known permanent failures (invalid API key, model not found, unsupported model, etc.).

Features:

• Catch-all retry — Any stopReason: "error" is retried, regardless of error message
• Automatic detection of 400/413, connection, credit, and stream exhaustion errors
• Auto-continuation when the model hits its max output tokens (stopReason: "length") — indefinite, no cap, invisible to the LLM
• Indefinite retry — Keeps retrying until success
• Exponential backoff with cap: max 60s between retries
• ALL triggers are invisible — custom messages with display: false, stripped by context handler (no TUI clutter, no conversation pollution)
• Manual controls via unified /retry command
• Non-retryable errors are explicitly logged so you know why we didn't retry

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Installation

Option 1: Install via pi package (Recommended)

Install directly from GitHub as a pi package:

pi install https://github.com/monotykamary/pi-retry

Or add to your settings.json:

{
  "packages": [
    "https://github.com/monotykamary/pi-retry"
  ]
}

Option 2: Global Installation

Copy the extension to pi's global extensions directory:

cp retry.ts ~/.pi/agent/extensions/

Option 3: Project-Local Installation

Copy to your project's .pi/extensions/ directory:

mkdir -p .pi/extensions
cp retry.ts .pi/extensions/

Option 4: Quick Test

pi -e ./retry.ts

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Usage

Once loaded, the extension automatically detects and retries all errors.

Manual Controls

Command	Description
/retry	Manually trigger immediate retry (auto-detects: 400/413, credit, connection, max_tokens, or any other error)
/retry status	Show current retry diagnostics for all error types + continuation state
/retry reset	Reset all retry counters and state

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Configuration

Edit the constants at the top of retry.ts:

const BASE_DELAY_MS = 2000;        // Start with 2 seconds
const MAX_DELAY_MS = 60000;        // Cap at 60 seconds
const BACKOFF_MULTIPLIER = 2;      // Double each time
// Continuation is now invisible — no CONTINUATION_PROMPT needed

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How It Works

1. Listen to agent_end event — Fires after each agent turn completes
2. Check for any error — Examine the last assistant message for stopReason === "error"
3. Blacklist check — Skip known permanent failures (invalid API key, model not found, etc.)
4. Categorize for messaging — Classify into 400/413, credit, connection, or other for nice UI notifications
5. Retry or continue (both invisible) — Wait (exponential backoff for errors), then trigger a new turn via pi.sendMessage() with customType, display: false, and triggerTurn: true
6. Context cleanup — The context event strips all custom-type triggers before the LLM sees them (insurance against custom convertToLlm overrides)
7. Indefinite continuation — Max_tokens auto-continues are uncapped; each continuation produces valid output and the model naturally terminates when done

The pi's built-in transform-messages already strips aborted/errored assistant messages from the LLM context, so the model never sees the failed attempts.

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Detected Error Patterns

Catch-All (Any Error)

• Any assistant message with stopReason === "error" is retried by default
• Unknown provider errors, stream errors, unexpected failures — all handled automatically
• Only skipped if it matches a known permanent failure (invalid API key, missing model, etc.)

Non-Retryable (Permanent Failures)

These are explicitly not retried:

• Invalid API key / invalid authentication
• API key not found / missing / revoked
• Model not found / unknown model / no such model / model does not exist
• Unsupported model

Max Tokens (stopReason: "length")

• The model hit its max_tokens / output token limit
• The model's response was truncated mid-generation
• Auto-continuation sends an invisible custom message — no visible "Continue" prompt in the conversation

400/413 Errors

• HTTP 400 Bad Request
• HTTP 413 Payload Too Large
• "bad request" messages
• "payload too large" messages

Credit / Payment Errors

• "Not Enough Credits"
• "insufficient credits"
• "insufficient balance"
• "out of credits"
• "Payment Required"
• HTTP 402 status code

Connection Errors

• Connection / network errors
• Fetch failures
• Socket hang up / socket errors
• ECONNRESET, ECONNREFUSED, ETIMEDOUT, ENOTFOUND
• DNS lookup failures
• "Request ended without sending any chunks"
• Upstream connect errors
• TLS handshake errors
• Timeouts awaiting response
• Stream exhaustion ("Max outbound streams is 100, 100 open")
• Stream limit errors

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Development

Running Tests

# Run all tests
npm test

# Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:watch

# Run tests with coverage
npm run test:coverage

# Type check
npm run typecheck

# Dead code detection
npm run lint:dead

Project Structure

.
├── retry.ts                   # Main unified extension
├── src/                       # Shared utilities (testable, DRY)
│   ├── error-patterns.ts      # Error pattern matching, custom types, hasMaxTokensStop
│   ├── retry-logic.ts         # Retry utilities (calculateDelay, RetryState, ContinuationState, etc.)
│   └── index.ts               # Barrel exports
├── __tests__/                 # Unit tests
│   └── unit/
│       ├── error-patterns.test.ts
│       └── retry-logic.test.ts
├── vitest.config.ts           # Test configuration
└── knip.json                  # Dead code detection config

Code Quality

# Run all quality checks
npm test              # 99 unit tests
npm run typecheck     # TypeScript type checking
npm run lint:dead     # Dead code detection with knip

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Troubleshooting

Extension not working?

Check that it's loaded in the startup header:

Loaded extensions: retry.ts

Retry not triggering?

Use the status command to diagnose:

/retry status

Want to see what's happening?

The extensions send notifications on retry attempts. Look at the footer status line for retry status updates. Non-retryable errors are logged as errors so you know why we stopped.

Too many retries?

Use /retry reset to clear the counters, or press Ctrl+C to abort the session.

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Comparison with @georgebashi/pi-retry

The npm package @georgebashi/pi-retry handles "aborted" streaming errors but explicitly excludes "connection error" (assuming pi's built-in retry handles it). This extension:

1. Handles ALL errors via a catch-all — no more playing whack-a-mole with new error patterns
2. Handles connection errors that pi might not retry sufficiently
3. Handles 400/413 errors without compaction
4. Handles credit errors and stream exhaustion

They can work together for maximum coverage:

pi install npm:@georgebashi/pi-retry
# Plus install this extension

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Limitations

• Extensions cannot override pi's internal isRetryableError() check — they run after pi decides not to auto-retry
• Error messages remain in the session history (but are invisible to the LLM)
• May hit the same error repeatedly if the issue is persistent (use Ctrl+C to abort)
• Warning: Retrying 400/413 without reducing context may fail repeatedly if the payload is genuinely too large
• Non-retryable errors (invalid API key, missing model) are logged but not retried — you'll need to fix the underlying issue

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Related

• Pi Coding Agent Extensions Docs
• @georgebashi/pi-retry — Handles "aborted" streaming errors
• Issue #252: Connection error with no retry

License

MIT