Overview

Automatic job retries save developer time by re-running failures that are likely transient, such as network timeouts, infrastructure failures, or flaky tests. Genuine code defects are not retried. Datadog runs each failed job through an AI-powered error classifier. When the failure is identified as retriable, Datadog triggers a retry through the CI provider’s API without manual intervention.

Automatic retries reduce the number of pipelines that developers re-run by hand, shorten feedback loops, and keep pipeline success metrics focused on non-transient failures.

How automatic job retries work

When a job in your CI pipeline fails:

1. Datadog’s AI error classifier inspects the job’s logs and error context to determine whether the failure is transient.
   • This is the same AI error classifier used by CI jobs failure analysis, which reads indexed job logs to decide whether a failure is transient.
2. If the failure is classified as retriable, Datadog requests a retry through the provider’s API.
3. Datadog retries each failing job up to a maximum number of attempts (set by Datadog) to prevent infinite retry loops. Retries are counted per job per commit—if the same job fails again on a new commit, the counter resets.
4. Datadog records the retry outcome on the original pipeline in CI Visibility.

Prerequisites

To use automatic job retries:

• CI Visibility must be enabled for your GitHub Actions or GitLab integration.
• For GitHub Actions, the Datadog GitHub App must have the Actions: Write permission.
• The Datadog Source Code Integration must be configured for the repositories where you’d like to use automatic retries.
• Datadog must have indexed CI job logs for the repositories where you’d like to use automatic retries (see Collect job logs for GitHub Actions or Collect job logs for GitLab).
• To enable this feature, you must have the CI Provider Settings Write permission in Datadog.

Enable automatic job retries

After the prerequisites are met, enable automatic job retries from CI/CD Optimization settings:

1. Open CI/CD Optimization > Settings > Repositories.
2. Choose where to apply the setting:
   • Select the Organization tab to enable Auto Job Retries for every repository by default.
   • Select the Repository-specific tab to enable Auto Job Retries for a single repository. To apply to many repositories at once, select them and use Bulk Apply Settings.
3. Under Mitigation, toggle Auto Job Retries on.

Provider-specific behavior

When is a failed job not retried?

A failed job is not retried when:

• The AI classifier categorizes the failure as non-retriable (for example, compilation errors or asserted test failures).
• The job has already been retried manually or by provider-native retry rules.

Note: On GitHub Actions, non-retriable failed jobs may still be re-run if another job in the same workflow is classified as retriable. Datadog issues a single “rerun failed jobs” GitHub API call, which re-runs every failed job in the workflow—including non-retriable ones.

Further reading

Documentation, liens et articles supplémentaires utiles:

Explore Pipeline Execution Results and PerformanceDOCUMENTATION Set up CI Visibility for GitHub ActionsDOCUMENTATION Set up CI Visibility for GitLabDOCUMENTATION Troubleshooting CI VisibilityDOCUMENTATION