exa-rate-limits_skill

Overview

This skill implements Exa rate limiting, exponential backoff with jitter, and idempotency patterns to make API usage reliable and predictable. It provides reusable patterns for retries, idempotency keys, queue-based throughput control, and rate-limit monitoring. Use it to prevent duplicate side effects, avoid thundering-herd retries, and respect Exa rate-limit headers.

How this skill works

The skill wraps API operations in an exponential-backoff loop that retries on 429 and 5xx errors, adding random jitter to spread retry attempts. It supports deterministic idempotency keys derived from operation parameters so retries do not create duplicate effects. It also reads rate-limit headers (X-RateLimit-*, Retry-After) and optionally gates requests through a queue to enforce concurrency and interval caps.

When to use it

• Handling Exa 429 responses or intermittent 5xx errors
• Implementing safe retry logic for operations with side effects
• Ensuring requests are idempotent across retries and client restarts
• Throttling high-throughput applications to stay within tier limits
• Scheduling backoff when Retry-After or reset headers indicate wait time

Best practices

• Honor Retry-After and X-RateLimit-Reset values before applying backoff
• Use deterministic idempotency keys for stateful operations (hash operation + params)
• Add jitter to exponential backoff to avoid synchronized retries
• Combine a request queue (concurrency + intervalCap) with header monitoring
• Log retry attempts and remaining quota to detect usage spikes early

Example use cases

• A job runner that retries failed Exa API calls with exponential backoff and idempotency keys to avoid duplicate jobs
• An interactive app that reads X-RateLimit-Remaining and temporarily throttles UI-triggered requests when quota is low
• A batch uploader that uses a PQueue-style queue to cap requests per second and spread bursts
• A webhook consumer that respects Retry-After headers and automatically reschedules processing
• A monitoring agent that updates internal counters from X-RateLimit-* headers and alerts before limits are reached