A processing device includes a transceiver to be coupled to a link and control logic coupled to the transceiver. The control logic is to assign a unique sequence identifier to each packet to be transmitted across the link to a receiving node and transmit packets via the transceiver across the link to the receiving node. Each packet is to have a unique sequence identifier. The control logic also is to receive a message from the receiving node, the message containing the sequence identifier of a packet not correctly received by the receiving node. Based on the received message, the control logic is to cause an end-to-end negative acknowledgment (E2E NAK) packet to be transmitted to an originating node of the packet that was not correctly received.