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go.unbounded_retry

Stability High

Detects retry patterns that don’t have proper bounds, which can cause infinite loops on permanent failures.

Why It Matters

Unbounded retries cause:

Infinite loops — Permanent failures never stop retrying
Resource exhaustion — CPU and connections consumed by retries
DoS on dependencies — Overwhelming already-struggling services
Extended outages — Retries prevent recovery

Example

// ❌ Before (unbounded)
func fetchData() error {
    for {
        if err := callAPI(); err == nil {
            return nil
        }
        time.Sleep(time.Second)
    }
}

// ✅ After (bounded with backoff)
func fetchData() error {
    maxRetries := 5
    backoff := time.Second

    for i := 0; i < maxRetries; i++ {
        if err := callAPI(); err == nil {
            return nil
        }
        time.Sleep(backoff)
        backoff *= 2 // Exponential backoff
        if backoff > time.Minute {
            backoff = time.Minute
        }
    }
    return errors.New("max retries exceeded")
}

What Unfault Detects

for {} loops with retry patterns
Missing max retry count
Missing backoff delays
Retries without jitter

Auto-Fix

Unfault generates patches using retry libraries:

import "github.com/cenkalti/backoff/v4"

func fetchData() error {
    operation := func() error {
        return callAPI()
    }

    b := backoff.NewExponentialBackOff()
    b.MaxElapsedTime = 2 * time.Minute
    b.MaxInterval = 30 * time.Second

    return backoff.Retry(operation, b)
}