Building a Retry System with Exponential Backoff for LLM API Calls in Python

LLM APIs fail. Rate limits hit at inconvenient times, 503s appear during high-traffic periods, and timeouts spike when the model is under load. If your pipeline doesn't have a retry strategy, a transient failure kills an hours-long job. This article builds a complete retry system: a generic backoff decorator, specific handling for 429 rate-limit responses, and a circuit breaker to stop retrying when a service is genuinely down. Why LLM APIs Fail Understanding the failure mode shapes...