Why retrying PostgreSQL serialization errors at the query level is always wrong

PostgreSQL's error code 40001 signals a serialization failure that aborts the entire transaction, not just the individual query that triggered it. Retrying only the failed query — a common developer instinct — is ineffective because the connection enters an aborted transaction state, causing all subsequent statements to fail with a different error code. The popular Node.js ORM ecosystem largely sidesteps the problem: a TypeORM feature request for automatic transaction retry has remained unimplemented since February 2023, and the widely used typeorm-transactional library offers no retry mechanism despite 188,000 weekly downloads. Further investigation revealed that where PostgreSQL surfaces the 40001 error is unpredictable, varying across versions and query plans — sometimes at commit, sometimes mid-transaction. The only correct approach is to wrap and retry the entire transaction from the start, not individual queries within it.