Resilience and Retry (Boot 3)

Boot 3 does not have Spring Framework 7 core resilience annotations. Preserve an existing Spring Retry or Resilience4j integration when fixing behavior; do not silently replace it. Spring Retry is archived, so the example below is for compatibility with existing Boot 3 applications, not a new-project default. For new retry infrastructure, evaluate a maintained Boot-3-compatible library such as Resilience4j and its exact Java/framework requirements. Keep dependencies explicit.

@Configuration
@EnableRetry
class RetryConfig { }

@Service
class CatalogClient {
    @Retryable(
        retryFor = ConnectException.class,
        maxAttempts = 4,
        backoff = @Backoff(delay = 200, multiplier = 2.0, maxDelay = 2000))
    CatalogItem find(UUID id) { ... } // idempotent read

    @Recover
    CatalogItem recover(ConnectException error, UUID id) { throw new CatalogUnavailableException(error); }
}

Spring Retry's maxAttempts includes the initial call. Resilience4j is preferable when retry must be composed with a circuit breaker or bulkhead. Both approaches are proxy-based: self invocation bypasses advice, and retrying a method inside a rollback-only transaction does not create a fresh transaction for each attempt.

Failure and deadline policy

• Classify exceptions at the transport boundary; HTTP clients may wrap connect/timeout errors. Retry only failures approved for that operation, not arbitrary Exception.
• A write timeout means the outcome may be unknown. Retry payment/order commands only with provider-supported idempotency and the same key and payload on every attempt. Reconcile uncertain outcomes; never turn exhaustion into a fabricated successful payment.
• Budget all attempts, backoff, connection-pool acquisition and downstream work within the caller's deadline. Per-attempt connect/read timeouts are not a total operation deadline. A retry timeout is not a mechanism for killing an already-running blocking call.
• Preserve interruption/cancellation and stop scheduling attempts when the budget is exhausted. Do not layer independent retries at gateway, HTTP client and service without a shared budget.
• Treat authentication/authorization errors and validation errors as permanent. Handle 409 according to the API contract. Honor bounded Retry-After for 429/503 only when policy permits; do not keep a request thread asleep beyond the caller's deadline.

The CatalogRetryService preserves Spring Retry for an existing application and requires spring-retry plus Spring AOP/AspectJ support. It is an executable, three-attempt read example, used with the companion HTTP-client adapter. It deliberately does not implement 429 scheduling or a total deadline. Tests cover transient recovery, exhaustion, permanent errors and interruption through the actual Spring proxy. Its delays are illustrative; choose production values from the downstream latency budget.

Verification scope

The repository fixture targets Boot 3.5.16 with Java 17/21 and checks bounded attempts through real Spring proxies; not a complete deadline-aware payment workflow. Check the coverage matrix before treating another minor version or an illustrative snippet as verified.

Gotchas

• Agent uses Framework 7 @EnableResilientMethods - Boot 3 needs Spring Retry or Resilience4j.
• Agent confuses maxAttempts with retry count - Spring Retry includes the initial call.
• Agent adds @Recover to Resilience4j - recovery must be modeled with a fallback or caller handling.
• Agent retries a self-invoked method - call through a Spring proxy.
• Agent retries inside a transaction expecting a fresh transaction - move retry outside the transactional bean.
• Agent retries non-idempotent writes without an idempotency key - protect payment and command operations.