diff --git a/DEVELOPMENT.md b/DEVELOPMENT.md
index 293586ae3..80bdd3d0c 100644
--- a/DEVELOPMENT.md
+++ b/DEVELOPMENT.md
@@ -85,6 +85,10 @@ development command line options.
   function will patch `requests` to log the results of calls to
   `requests.utils.super_len()`
 
+- `DANDI_DOWNLOAD_AGGRESSIVE_RETRY` -- When set, would make `download()` retry
+  very aggressively - it would keep trying if at least some bytes are downloaded
+  on each attempt.  Typically is not needed and could be a sign of network issues.
+
 ## Sourcegraph
 
 The [Sourcegraph](https://sourcegraph.com) browser extension can be used to
diff --git a/dandi/download.py b/dandi/download.py
index 2295c017f..249732e1b 100644
--- a/dandi/download.py
+++ b/dandi/download.py
@@ -750,7 +750,7 @@ def _download_file(
         # errors (among others) in addition to HTTP status errors.
         except requests.RequestException as exc:
             sleep_amount = random.random() * 5 * attempt
-            if os.environ.get("DANDI_DEVEL_AGGRESSIVE_RETRY"):
+            if os.environ.get("DANDI_DOWNLOAD_AGGRESSIVE_RETRY"):
                 # in such a case if we downloaded a little more --
                 # consider it a successful attempt
                 if downloaded_in_attempt > 0: