Feature Request: Enhanced `retry` options

[matzeeable]

Clear and concise description of the problem

Vitest supports a retry mechanism, but currently it only retries a fixed number of times on any kind of error.

This limits flexibility in several ways:

• It’s not possible to retry only on specific error types (e.g. TimeoutError).
• There is no option to delay retries (useful for APIs, DBs, or rate-limited services).
• There is no option to defer retries until the end of the test file, which can improve flow and reduce interference with other tests.

Other test runners (e.g. Jest, WebdriverIO) provide these options:

• Webdriver.io and their specFileRetriesDelay + specFileRetriesDeferred option.
• Jest and the retryTimes(numRetries, { waitBeforeRetry: 100, retryImmediately: false }) function.

Suggested solution

Extend the retry API with the following features:

• retryStrategy: "immediate" | "test-file" | "deferred" (default immediate)

  • immediate: retry failed test immediately.
  • test-file: run retries until the end of the test file.
  • deferred: defer retries after all other tests have run across all test files.

• retryDelay: number (milliseconds, default 0). Or even better, use Add Support for Backoff Mechanism in Retry Configuration #8095

• retryCondition: string | ((error: Error) => boolean): If string (Regexp), it should only retry when the occurred Error message matches the Regexp. If function, it should only retry when the function returns true.

Alternative

No response

Additional context

No response

Validations

• Follow our Code of Conduct
• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that request the same feature to avoid creating a duplicate.

[sheremet-va]

This sounds like a great idea. PR is welcome!

[nehaaprasad]

hi @matzeeable
implemented the enhanced retry options feature you requested - vitest now supports retryStrategy, retryDelay, and retryCondition with full backward compatibility.

[jamesgpearce]

Not sure what happened to this PR but would have loved this feature!

[matanshavit]

I made a PR in an attempt to address this issue. I will follow the review and make follow up changes as needed to attempt to get the feature included.