Backoff Jitter - CI/CD Glossary Definition

Backoff jitter is the random delay added to each retry interval so that many clients retrying after a failure do not all retry at the same instant. It spreads retries over time, preventing the synchronized waves that cause retry storms and thundering herds.

How it works

Exponential backoff doubles the wait after each attempt (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s), but if every client uses the same schedule they retry in lockstep. Adding jitter, picking a random delay up to the current backoff bound (full jitter), decorrelates the clients so load spreads smoothly. AWS popularized the full-jitter and decorrelated-jitter strategies for exactly this.

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