Retry transient npm audit service failures without weakening the security gate

.github/workflows/qa.yml

@@ -14,7 +14,30 @@ jobs:
         with:
           node-version: 22
       - run: npm ci
-      - run: npm audit --audit-level=high
+      - name: Audit dependencies (retry service errors only)
+        timeout-minutes: 4
+        shell: bash
+        run: |
+          set -euo pipefail
+          report="$(mktemp)"
+          trap 'rm -f "$report"' EXIT
+          for attempt in 1 2 3; do
+            set +e
+            npm audit --audit-level=high --loglevel=verbose > "$report" 2>&1
+            status=$?
+            set -e
+            cat "$report"
+            if [ "$status" -eq 0 ]; then exit 0; fi
+            # An actual vulnerability report fails immediately. A failed
+            # registry response is retried, never accepted as a clean audit.
+            if ! grep -Eq 'audit endpoint returned an error|ENOTFOUND|ECONNRESET|EAI_AGAIN|ETIMEDOUT|E429|E503' "$report"; then
+              exit "$status"
+            fi
+            if [ "$attempt" -eq 3 ]; then exit "$status"; fi
+            echo "Audit service unavailable; retry $attempt/3 after a delay."
+            sleep "$((attempt * 20))"
+          done
+          exit 1
       - run: npm run check:deploy
       - run: php -l public/api/index.php && php -l ops/timeweb/api-proxy.php
       - run: php tests/proxy-http.php app && php tests/proxy-http.php api