Errors and retries

Handle validation, authentication, rate-limit, transient, and terminal failures predictably, with retry guidance for each class of Ultrafield error.

Classify an error before deciding to retry it.

ClassTypical response
ValidationFix the request; retrying the same input will not help
Authentication or authorizationCorrect credentials or access; do not loop
Rate or capacityBack off according to response guidance and add jitter
Transient service or network failureRetry with bounded exponential backoff
Unsupported or invalid audioInspect encoding, container, duration, or corruption
Terminal processing failureRecord the failure and route it for application-specific handling

Retry safely

  • Set connect and overall request timeouts appropriate to batch or streaming work.
  • Use bounded exponential backoff with jitter.
  • Cap total attempts and surface exhausted work to an operator or dead-letter queue.
  • Preserve a stable application request identifier where supported.
  • Reconcile asynchronous job state after ambiguous network failures before submitting duplicate work.

Log useful context

Record your request identifier, the Ultrafield job or request identifier, model route, processing stages, error class, and attempt number. Never log API keys or sensitive raw audio by default.

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