429: TOO MANY REQUESTS

As systems continue to scale to serve millions of concurrent users, the need for controlled and predictable API access has never been more critical. Rate limiting is a traffic management technique that restricts the number of requests a client can make to a server within a defined time period. It serves as a foundational safeguard for system reliability, fairness, and security in production environments. The Case for Rate Limiting An API without rate limiting is vulnerable. The consequences of unbounded request traffic can range from low performing micro-services to complete service outages. The primary motivations for implementing rate limiting include: Protection against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks : Malicious actors can flood endpoints with requests, exhausting server resources and crashing the system. Prevention of resource monopolization : A single client/user can degrade the experience for all other users Cost management : Uncontrolled traffic directly affects the cost of the