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Common Patterns

Rate Limits

The Qwetty API enforces rate limits to ensure fair usage and system stability.

Limits

The API allows 60 requests per 60 seconds, per API key.

Separately, each organization has a monthly request quota based on its plan. Exceeding the monthly quota returns 403 Forbidden.

Rate limit headers

The X-RateLimit-* headers are returned only on a 429 response (not on successful requests):

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Maximum requests in the window
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Requests remaining in the window
X-RateLimit-Reset	Unix timestamp when the window resets
Retry-After	Seconds to wait before retrying

Handling rate limits

When you exceed the per-minute limit, the API returns 429 Too Many Requests:

Code
{
  "success": false,
  "message": "Too many requests. Please retry after 42 seconds.",
  "retryAfter": 42
}

Backoff strategy

Implement exponential backoff:

Code
async function requestWithBackoff(url, options, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let i = 0; i < maxRetries; i++) {
    const response = await fetch(url, options);
    if (response.status !== 429) return response;

    const resetTime = response.headers.get('X-RateLimit-Reset');
    const waitMs = resetTime
      ? (parseInt(resetTime) * 1000) - Date.now()
      : Math.pow(2, i) * 1000;

    await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, waitMs));
  }
  throw new Error('Rate limit exceeded after retries');
}

Best practices

• Respect Retry-After on a 429 response to know exactly how long to wait
• Batch operations where possible to reduce request count
• Cache responses for data that doesn't change frequently
• Use webhooks instead of polling for real-time updates

Note: the rate-limit headers are only present on 429 responses, so you can't read remaining quota from a successful request.

Next steps

• Error Handling — Handle all API errors
• Webhooks — Real-time event notifications