Rate limits

Request limits, throttling signals, and how to retry without overwhelming the API.

Rate limits protect API reliability and keep response times stable.

How limits work

• Limits are applied per API token.
• When you exceed limits, API returns 429 Too Many Requests.
• Use exponential backoff before retrying.

Retry strategy

1. On 429, wait and retry with backoff (1s, 2s, 4s, …).
2. Add jitter to avoid retry spikes.
3. Stop retries after a maximum attempt threshold.

Example backoff (pseudocode)

attempt = 0
while attempt < 5:
  response = call_api()
  if response.status != 429:
    break
  sleep((2 ^ attempt) + random_jitter)
  attempt += 1