---
title: "How do you avoid duplicate OpenAI API work after a client timeout?"  
description: "How do you avoid duplicate OpenAI API work after a client timeout?"  
author: "Stefano Coppola"  
published: 2026-10-25  
updated: 2026-10-25  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/162912/how-do-you-avoid-duplicate-openai-api-work-after-a-client-timeout  
category: "API Development"  
tags: ["OpenAI API", "Retries", "Backend development"]  
reading_time: 1 minute  

---

# How do you avoid duplicate OpenAI API work after a client timeout?

I’m building a small service that sends requests to the OpenAI API, and occasionally my client times out before it receives a response. At that point, I can’t tell whether the server never got the request or finished it and the reply was simply lost.

What’s the safest way to handle a retry here? I’m especially interested in avoiding duplicate API work and figuring out whether the original request completed.


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Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/162912/how-do-you-avoid-duplicate-openai-api-work-after-a-client-timeout

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