Add automatic retry for flaky markdown link validation in CI

[Copilot]

The markdown link validation step occasionally fails due to transient network issues when checking external links.

Changes

• Add native bash retry logic to the markdown link validation step
• Configure to retry once on failure with a 5-second delay between attempts
• Add clear logging when retry occurs
• Properly propagate exit codes to ensure failures are still caught

Implementation

- name: Validate markdown links
  run: |
    if ! pnpm run md-link:check; then
      echo "Markdown link check failed, retrying once..."
      sleep 5
      pnpm run md-link:check
    fi

This allows transient failures to self-recover while still catching persistent link issues, using only native bash features without any third-party dependencies.

Original prompt

The "Validate markdown links" task in CI can be flaky. Is there a way to automatically retry it once if it fails before the job itself is marked as failure?

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[sjdemartini]

@copilot Is there not a built-in way to retry? I'd rather avoid a new third party thing nick-fields/retry@v3 just for this

[Copilot]

@copilot Is there not a built-in way to retry? I'd rather avoid a new third party thing nick-fields/retry@v3 just for this

You're right! I've switched to a native bash retry pattern instead. The updated implementation uses a simple if-then structure that retries once on failure:

if ! pnpm run md-link:check; then
  echo "Markdown link check failed, retrying once..."
  sleep 5
  pnpm run md-link:check
fi

This achieves the same retry behavior without any third-party dependencies. Fixed in 361b94b.