Techniques for on-demand soft ack/nack in a wireless communication system

A method of wireless communication at a network entity, comprising:

• determining whether to enable soft acknowledge (ACK)/negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback;
• transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), a request to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback based on a determination to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback;
• and
• receiving, from the UE, a soft ACK/NACK transmission in response to transmitting the request.

An apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being a user equipment (UE), comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to:
• receive, from a network entity, a request to enable soft acknowledge (ACK)/negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback;
• determine to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback based on the request;
• and
• transmit, to the network entity, the soft ACK/NACK feedback based on a determination to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback.

An apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being a network entity, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to:
• determine whether to enable soft acknowledge (ACK)/negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback;
• transmit, to a user equipment (UE), a request to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback based on a determination to enable the soft ACK/NACK feedback;
• and
• receive, from the UE, a soft ACK/NACK transmission in response to transmitting the request.