internal_error.

What it means.

An unexpected server error occurred. This is never the customer's fault. The request_id has been logged; please include it when reporting.

Retry strategy.

The envelope returns retry_strategy: "retry_after_seconds" by default for this code.

Wait the number of seconds given in error.retry_hint.after_seconds (also mirrored in the Retry-After HTTP header), then retry the identical request.

Example error envelope.

Locked RFC-001 shape. The HTTP status is 500, the x-request-id header mirrors error.request_id, and the doc_url points back to this page.

{
  "error": {
    "type": "api_error",
    "code": "internal_error",
    "message": "An unexpected server error occurred.",
    "doc_url": "https://www.orbytlabs.ai/intelligence/api/errors/internal_error",
    "request_id": "req_0123456789abcdef",
    "retry_strategy": "retry_after_seconds",
    "retry_hint": {
      "after_seconds": 60
    }
  }
}

How to fix it.

1. Honor the Retry-After header or error.retry_hint.after_seconds before retrying. Standard HTTP retry libraries handle this automatically.
2. Add exponential backoff with jitter if you see this repeatedly under load.
3. If the error persists past several retry windows, contact support with the error.request_id.

Keep building.