You'll noticeTier: how much it should matter to you
2Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
1Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
ElsewhereArea: what it touches
Bug FixesKind: in v2.1.311,
Bug FixesSection of the release
Unclear Exactly which 503 responses honour the header is not stated.
What
A server can send the header x-should-retry: false to tell Claude Code not to try a request again. Claude Code used to look at this header only after its other retry rules had been checked, so a request that hit one of those rules was retried anyway.
The header is now checked earlier. Claude Code no longer retries when the header comes with these error responses:
429, which means too many requests.
529, which means the service is overloaded.
503, which means the service is unavailable. This one is honoured only under certain conditions.
There is an exception: if the response also carries a header marking the problem as a fetch error, other conditions decide what happens.
Why
This changes how Claude Code behaves when the service is busy. If you run a gateway or proxy, sending x-should-retry: false with these errors now stops Claude Code from retrying.
How sure we are
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubtExactly which 503 responses honour the header is not stated.
