diff --git a/doc/todo/more_extensive_retries_to_mask_transient_failures.mdwn b/doc/todo/more_extensive_retries_to_mask_transient_failures.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ebe3348ee8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/todo/more_extensive_retries_to_mask_transient_failures.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+In a number of scenarios (e.g. [[bugs/still_seeing_errors_with_parallel_git-annex-add]], [[bugs/parallel_copy_fails]], [[git-annex-sync/#comment-aceb18109c0a536e04bcdd3aa04bda29]]), `git-annex` operations may fail or hang due to transient conditions.  It would help a lot if `git-annex` could be configured to fail timed-out operations, and to retry failed operations after a delay.  This would especially help when using `git-annex` in a script or a higher-level tool.  I've tried wrapping some retry logic around `git-annex` calls, but it seems `git-annex` itself is in the best position to do that sensibly (e.g. only retrying idempotent operations, or capping retries per remote).  This would be a catch-all fix for unusual conditions that are hard to test for.
+
+`git-annex` already has config options `annex.retry` and `annex.retry-delay`, but it seems that they don't cover all failure types.