Rate Limiting on AI Agent APIs: How It Works

Rate Limits on Runcept

Every API key has a per-minute rate limit based on your plan:

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Rate limits apply to POST /api/v1/run (job creation). Polling GET /api/v1/jobs/:id does not count against your rate limit.

The 429 Response

When you exceed your rate limit, Runcept returns:

HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
Retry-After: 60
Content-Type: application/json

{ "error": "rate_limit_exceeded", "retry_after": 60 }

Handling 429 in JavaScript

async function runAgentWithRetry(slug, input, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 0; attempt < maxRetries; attempt++) {
    const response = await fetch('https://www.runcept.com/api/v1/run', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: {
        Authorization: Bearer ${process.env.RUNCEPT_API_KEY},
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ agent: slug, input }),
    })

    if (response.status === 429) {
      const retryAfter = parseInt(response.headers.get('Retry-After') ?? '60')
      console.warn(Rate limited. Waiting ${retryAfter}s...)
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, retryAfter * 1000))
      continue
    }

    return response.json()
  }
  throw new Error('Max retries exceeded')
}

Handling 429 in Python

import time
import requests

def run_agent_with_retry(slug, input_data, max_retries=3):
    url = "https://www.runcept.com/api/v1/run"
    headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['RUNCEPT_API_KEY']}"}

    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        r = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json={"agent": slug, "input": input_data})

        if r.status_code == 429:
            retry_after = int(r.headers.get("Retry-After", 60))
            print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {retry_after}s...")
            time.sleep(retry_after)
            continue

        r.raise_for_status()
        return r.json()

    raise RuntimeError("Max retries exceeded")

Batch Processing Strategy

If you need to process many items, stagger your requests:

async function processBatch(items, agentSlug, ratePerMin = 10) {
  const delayMs = (60 / ratePerMin) * 1000 // spread over a minute
  const results = []

  for (const item of items) {
    const result = await runAgent(agentSlug, item)
    results.push(result)
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, delayMs))
  }

  return results
}

Next Steps

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