A production application using Claude receives an occasional 529 'Overloaded' error. What is the BEST practice for handling this?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation and Infographic
Overloaded errors are temporary — the right move is wait, then try again, with increasing delays between attempts. Exponential backoff prevents thundering herd.
Full explanation below image
Full Explanation
HTTP 529 (Overloaded) from Anthropic indicates the API is temporarily at capacity. Best practice is exponential backoff with jitter: wait an initial period (e.g., 1 second), retry, and if still failing, double the wait time (2s, 4s, 8s...) with random jitter added to prevent synchronized retry storms. This is a transient condition that typically resolves quickly. Anthropic provides retry recommendations in their documentation. Option A (switching providers) is an overreaction to a temporary condition. Option C (failing silently) is terrible UX. Option D (max_tokens) has no relation to server overload.