status codes and error handling — what ai's api calls do when the wire blinks

AI wrote a retry helper that re-tries on any non-2xx status. That's wrong — 4xx errors mean the request itself is broken, and retrying with the same payload just hammers the API. Only 5xx errors are retry-worthy.

Fix the condition on line 4 so the function only retries when the status is in the 5xx family. For 4xx, it should return immediately with the string "client error".

The helper makes up to 3 attempts. With three 4xx responses queued, expected output is:

client error

(one attempt, no retries)