How to Build an Async Image API Client That Accurately Tracks Completion

Image generation APIs can return either an immediate result or an asynchronous task, and conflating the two leads to broken retry logic and incorrect status reporting. A reliable client must inspect the response to determine delivery mode and only mark a request complete when the API contract explicitly signals it. When an async task is returned, the client should store the task ID and poll the status endpoint using bounded exponential backoff rather than replaying the original request on timeout. Terminal states such as succeeded, failed, cancelled, and expired must be handled distinctly, and request IDs should be recorded separately from task IDs for accurate tracking. Preserving image-specific parameters like prompts, model IDs, and file references ensures the client can support multiple endpoint families without masking their differences.