What
Besides the main conversation, Claude Code sends smaller background requests to the API. A 503 error means the server is temporarily unable to handle a request. Before, only one kind of 503 reply to these background requests was retried. Now any 503 that comes back without a particular header is retried once:
- a reply that says not to retry is still retried once without waiting
- any other 503 is retried once after a short wait
Why
Fewer background requests should fail when the API has a brief hiccup.
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How long the wait before the retry lasts is not known.