Error handling and retries

How Automatic Retries Work

JOSDK automatically schedules retries whenever your Reconciler throws an exception. This robust retry mechanism helps handle transient issues like network problems or temporary resource unavailability.

Default Retry Behavior

The default retry implementation covers most typical use cases with exponential backoff:

GenericRetry.defaultLimitedExponentialRetry()
    .setInitialInterval(5000)       // Start with 5-second delay
    .setIntervalMultiplier(1.5D)    // Increase delay by 1.5x each retry
    .setMaxAttempts(5);             // Maximum 5 attempts

Configuration Options

Using the @GradualRetry annotation:

@ControllerConfiguration
@GradualRetry(maxAttempts = 3, initialInterval = 2000)
public class MyReconciler implements Reconciler<MyResource> {
    // reconciler implementation
}

Custom retry implementation:

Specify a custom retry class in the @ControllerConfiguration annotation:

@ControllerConfiguration(retry = MyCustomRetry.class)
public class MyReconciler implements Reconciler<MyResource> {
    // reconciler implementation
}

Your custom retry class must:

• Provide a no-argument constructor for automatic instantiation
• Optionally implement AnnotationConfigurable for configuration from annotations. See GenericRetry implementation for more details.

Accessing Retry Information

The Context object provides retry state information:

@Override
public UpdateControl<MyResource> reconcile(MyResource resource, Context<MyResource> context) {
    if (context.isLastAttempt()) {
        // Handle final retry attempt differently
        resource.getStatus().setErrorMessage("Failed after all retry attempts");
        return UpdateControl.patchStatus(resource);
    }
    
    // Normal reconciliation logic
    // ...
}

Important Retry Behavior Notes

• Retry limits don’t block new events: When retry limits are reached, new reconciliations still occur for new events
• No retry on limit reached: If an error occurs after reaching the retry limit, no additional retries are scheduled until new events arrive
• Event-driven recovery: Fresh events can restart the retry cycle, allowing recovery from previously failed states

A successful execution resets the retry state.

Reconciler Error Handler

In order to facilitate error reporting you can override updateErrorStatus method in Reconciler:

public class MyReconciler implements Reconciler<WebPage> {

   @Override
   public ErrorStatusUpdateControl<WebPage> updateErrorStatus(
           WebPage resource, Context<WebPage> context, Exception e) {
      return handleError(resource, e);
   }

}

The updateErrorStatus method is called in case an exception is thrown from the Reconciler. It is also called even if no retry policy is configured, just after the reconciler execution. RetryInfo.getAttemptCount() is zero after the first reconciliation attempt, since it is not a result of a retry (regardless of whether a retry policy is configured).

ErrorStatusUpdateControl tells the SDK what to do and how to perform the status update on the primary resource, which is always performed as a status sub-resource request. Note that this update request will also produce an event and result in a reconciliation if the controller is not generation-aware.

This feature is only available for the reconcile method of the Reconciler interface, since there should not be updates to resources that have been marked for deletion.

Retry can be skipped in cases of unrecoverable errors:

 ErrorStatusUpdateControl.patchStatus(customResource).withNoRetry();

Correctness and Automatic Retries

While it is possible to deactivate automatic retries, this is not desirable unless there is a particular reason. Errors naturally occur, whether it be transient network errors or conflicts when a given resource is handled by a Reconciler but modified simultaneously by a user in a different process. Automatic retries handle these cases nicely and will eventually result in a successful reconciliation.

Retry, Rescheduling and Event Handling Common Behavior

Retry, reschedule, and standard event processing form a relatively complex system, each of these functionalities interacting with the others. In the following, we describe the interplay of these features:

1. A successful execution resets a retry and the rescheduled executions that were present before the reconciliation. However, the reconciliation outcome can instruct a new rescheduling (UpdateControl or DeleteControl).

   For example, if a reconciliation had previously been rescheduled for after some amount of time, but an event triggered the reconciliation (or cleanup) in the meantime, the scheduled execution would be automatically cancelled, i.e. rescheduling a reconciliation does not guarantee that one will occur precisely at that time; it simply guarantees that a reconciliation will occur at the latest. Of course, it’s always possible to reschedule a new reconciliation at the end of that “automatic” reconciliation.

   Similarly, if a retry was scheduled, any event from the cluster triggering a successful execution in the meantime would cancel the scheduled retry (because there’s now no point in retrying something that already succeeded)

2. In case an exception is thrown, a retry is initiated. However, if an event is received meanwhile, it will be reconciled instantly, and this execution won’t count as a retry attempt.

3. If the retry limit is reached (so no more automatic retry would happen), but a new event received, the reconciliation will still happen, but won’t reset the retry, and will still be marked as the last attempt in the retry info. The point (1) still holds - thus successful reconciliation will reset the retry - but no retry will happen in case of an error.

The thing to remember when it comes to retrying or rescheduling is that JOSDK tries to avoid unnecessary work. When you reschedule an operation, you instruct JOSDK to perform that operation by the end of the rescheduling delay at the latest. If something occurred on the cluster that triggers that particular operation (reconciliation or cleanup), then JOSDK considers that there’s no point in attempting that operation again at the end of the specified delay since there is no point in doing so anymore. The same idea also applies to retries.