Step Retry Policy - CI/CD Glossary Definition

A step retry policy sets how many times and how a failing step is re-attempted, since GitHub Actions has no native step retry.

A step retry policy defines how a failing step is automatically re-attempted, including the number of retries and the backoff between them. GitHub Actions has no native step retry, so teams use a retry action or a shell loop.

Retries paper over transient failures (network blips, flaky endpoints) but should not mask a genuinely broken step.

Common implementations

Use a community action like nick-fields/retry with max_attempts and retry_wait_seconds, or wrap the command in a bash loop that retries on non-zero exit. Reserve retries for known-transient operations.

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