Rate Limiting Patterns

Rate limiting algorithms, implementation strategies, HTTP conventions, tiered limits, distributed patterns, and client-side handling. Use when protecting APIs from abuse, implementing usage tiers, or configuring gateway-level throttling.

What's Inside

• Algorithms — token bucket, leaky bucket, fixed window, sliding window log, sliding window counter
• Implementation Options — in-memory, Redis, API gateway, middleware
• HTTP Headers — RateLimit-Limit, RateLimit-Remaining, RateLimit-Reset, Retry-After
• 429 Response Body format
• Rate Limit Tiers — per-IP, per-user, per-API-key, per-endpoint with tiered pricing examples
• Distributed Rate Limiting — Redis-based patterns, atomic Lua scripts
• API Gateway Configuration — NGINX and Kong examples
• Client-Side Handling — retry with backoff, respecting Retry-After
• Monitoring — hit rate, near-limit warnings, top offenders, false positives
• Anti-Patterns and common mistakes

When to Use

• Protecting APIs from abuse and overuse
• Implementing usage tiers for API consumers
• Configuring gateway-level or middleware-level throttling
• Setting up distributed rate limiting with Redis
• Designing client-side rate limit handling and retry logic
• Monitoring rate limit effectiveness

Installation

npx add https://github.com/wpank/ai/tree/main/skills/api/rate-limiting

Manual Installation

Cursor (per-project)

From your project root:

mkdir -p .cursor/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/rate-limiting .cursor/skills/rate-limiting

Cursor (global)

mkdir -p ~/.cursor/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/rate-limiting ~/.cursor/skills/rate-limiting

Claude Code (per-project)

From your project root:

mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/rate-limiting .claude/skills/rate-limiting

Claude Code (global)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r ~/.ai-skills/skills/api/rate-limiting ~/.claude/skills/rate-limiting

Related Skills

• auth-patterns — Rate limiting protects auth endpoints from brute force
• error-handling — 429 status code handling and retry patterns
• caching — Caching and rate limiting often work together
• api-design — Rate limiting as part of API design considerations

Part of the API skill category.