<![CDATA[Our X-RateLimit-Reset headers are bad and we should feel bad]]>I've found at least four different formats used on the Fediverse for the X-RateLimit-Reset header:

  • A datestamp (Mastodon)
  • Unix epoch in seconds
  • Time offset in seconds (N seconds from now)
  • Unix epoch in milliseconds (Holos)

It's possible to use some heuristics for these (looks like a date, looks like an integer, range of the integer), which are pretty reliable.

The new RateLimit headers from IETF are very nice, but don't seem to be well-supported yet.

]]>https://fedi.wiki/topic/c0a2d1c5-9573-46d9-9eaa-6ab4ed190167/our-x-ratelimit-reset-headers-are-bad-and-we-should-feel-badRSS for NodeMon, 25 May 2026 01:51:45 GMTThu, 14 May 2026 16:49:17 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Our X-RateLimit-Reset headers are bad and we should feel bad on Thu, 14 May 2026 18:14:49 GMT]]>@evan 429? Amateur hour.

You need to keep banging on the API until the server is overwhelmed and times out. That's the 2026 way.

]]>https://fedi.wiki/post/https://activitypub.space/post/1871https://fedi.wiki/post/https://activitypub.space/post/1871Thu, 14 May 2026 18:14:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Our X-RateLimit-Reset headers are bad and we should feel bad on Thu, 14 May 2026 17:05:43 GMT]]>@evan I have a Python function I've built up over time for handling rate limiting headers (no canonical location for it; I just copy it around when needed). I've come across epoch (GitHub) and ISO 8601 (Mastodon, Jira), but haven't seen the other two. I'll take a look at the RateLimit spec, thanks.

https://forge.colobox.com/rfinnie/rf-tools/src/branch/main/bin/mastodon-downloader#L50

(For the last few weeks I've been working on moving stuff to Forgejo, and I'm surprised their API doesn't have rate limit headers.)

]]>https://fedi.wiki/post/https://m29.us/users/ryan/statuses/116574017510286788https://fedi.wiki/post/https://m29.us/users/ryan/statuses/116574017510286788Thu, 14 May 2026 17:05:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Our X-RateLimit-Reset headers are bad and we should feel bad on Thu, 14 May 2026 16:49:38 GMT]]>Of course, you can just bang on the API until you get 429 restricted, too.

]]>https://fedi.wiki/post/https://activitypub.space/post/1868https://fedi.wiki/post/https://activitypub.space/post/1868Thu, 14 May 2026 16:49:38 GMT