---
title: "What is Hedging strategy in Polly v8 and how to implement it in .NET?"  
description: "What is Hedging strategy in Polly v8 and how to implement it in .NET?"  
author: "Ravi Vishwakarma"  
published: 2026-08-17  
updated: 2026-08-21  
canonical: https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/117064/what-is-hedging-strategy-in-polly-v8-and-how-to-implement-it-in-net  
category: "Polly"  
tags: ["csharp", "dotnet", "polly", "hedging", "performance"]  
reading_time: 3 minutes  

---

# What is Hedging strategy in Polly v8 and how to implement it in .NET?

Hedging executes additional concurrent attempts of an operation before the primary attempt finishes if it takes longer than expected. This decreases tail latency in high-availability systems.

## Implementing Hedging with Polly

Hedging is ideal for idempotent operations (such as HTTP GET queries) where receiving the fastest successful response is critical.

### Code Example

```cs
var pipeline = new ResiliencePipelineBuilder<HttpResponseMessage>()
    .AddHedging(new HedgingStrategyOptions<HttpResponseMessage>
    {
        MaxHedgedAttempts = 3,
        Delay = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200),
        ShouldHandle = new PredicateBuilder<HttpResponseMessage>()
            .Handle<HttpRequestException>()
            .HandleResult(res => !res.IsSuccessStatusCode)
    })
    .Build();

var response = await pipeline.ExecuteAsync(async ct =>
{
    return await httpClient.GetAsync("https://api.example.com/data", ct);
});
```

## Answers

### Answer by Hemant Patel

The **Hedging strategy** in Polly v8 is a proactive resilience mechanism designed to reduce tail latency in distributed systems. Instead of waiting for a slow request to time out or fail before trying again, Hedging automatically spawns additional concurrent attempts (hedged requests) if the primary request exceeds a specified delay threshold.

## How Hedging Works

In high-throughput microservices, latency spikes (tail latency) can significantly impact user experience. Hedging addresses this issue through the following flow:

- **Primary Request:** The original request is dispatched first.
- **Hedging Delay:** If the primary request does not respond within a configured timeframe, a parallel request is triggered.
- **First Successful Response Wins:** The result of the fastest successful attempt is returned immediately to the caller, and any remaining in-flight requests are cancelled.

## Implementing Hedging in .NET using Polly v8

Polly v8 introduced the `ResiliencePipelineBuilder<T>` API, making it easy to construct typed resilience pipelines. Below is an example demonstrating how to configure and execute a Hedging strategy for an HTTP call in C#:

```cs
using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Polly;
using Polly.Hedging;

public class PollyHedgingDemo
{
    public static async Task RunAsync()
    {
        ResiliencePipeline<HttpResponseMessage> pipeline = new ResiliencePipelineBuilder<HttpResponseMessage>()
            .AddHedging(new HedgingStrategyOptions<HttpResponseMessage>
            {
                MaxHedgedAttempts = 3,
                Delay = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(300),
                ShouldHandle = new PredicateBuilder<HttpResponseMessage>()
                    .HandleResult(response => !response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
                    .Handle<HttpRequestException>()
            })
            .Build();

        using var httpClient = new HttpClient();

        HttpResponseMessage response = await pipeline.ExecuteAsync(
            async cancellationToken =>
            {
                return await httpClient.GetAsync("https://api.example.com/data", cancellationToken);
            },
            CancellationToken.None);

        Console.WriteLine($"Response Status Code: {response.StatusCode}");
    }
}
```

## Key Configuration Parameters

- **MaxHedgedAttempts:** Specifies the maximum total attempts allowed, including the primary attempt and subsequent hedged calls.
- **Delay:** Configures the duration to wait before starting the next hedged attempt while the previous attempt is still pending.
- **ShouldHandle:** Defines which exception types or HTTP response status codes indicate a failure that warrants a hedged request.


---

Original Source: https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/117064/what-is-hedging-strategy-in-polly-v8-and-how-to-implement-it-in-net

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