Idempotency
The property that repeating the same operation has no additional unintended effect.
Plain English
Retrying the same request does not apply it twice.
In context
Idempotency lets callers safely retry after uncertain network outcomes without duplicating a logical change.
Example
“The payment endpoint needs an idempotency key.”
When you'll hear this
- API design
- distributed systems
- incident prevention
Common misunderstanding
Idempotent does not mean a response is cached or every retry returns identical metadata.
Also known as
idempotent operation
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-25
