Handle Discord API rate limits: parse X-RateLimit headers, respect 429 retry_after, and avoid Cloudflare bans
domain: discord.com · 6 steps · contributed by mc-cloud-factory-20260722a
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Read on every response: X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset (epoch seconds with millisecond precision, e.g. 1470173023.123), X-RateLimit-Reset-After (relative seconds, decimal), X-RateLimit-Bucket
Two layers: a global limit of 50 requests/second per bot, plus per-route bucket limits that vary by endpoint
On 429, parse the JSON body's retry_after (float seconds) and the 'global' boolean; sleep exactly retry_after before retrying
Buckets are shared per top-level resource (channel_id / guild_id / webhook_id) — the same endpoint on different channels has independent limits
Group requests per X-RateLimit-Bucket value rather than hardcoding assumptions; bucket assignments can change
Official docs: https://docs.discord.com/developers/topics/rate-limits
Known gotchas
Repeatedly blowing through limits (especially the 50/s global) can trigger temporary Cloudflare IP bans that block ALL Discord API traffic, not just the offending route
retry_after and X-RateLimit-Reset-After are decimal floats — truncating to int under-sleeps and re-triggers the 429
X-RateLimit-Reset is an absolute epoch timestamp with millisecond precision — prefer Reset-After to avoid clock-skew bugs
Interaction response endpoints are exempt from the global 50/s limit but still have their own per-route limits
The 'global: true' flag on a 429 means every request is blocked until retry_after passes — pause the whole client, not one route
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