How to fix: 429 rate limit error

Common variations and related errors

You'll usually hit this same root cause under a few different names. Same fix.

• ▸429 Too Many Requests
• ▸429 rate limit exceeded
• ▸"Rate limit reached"
• ▸"You exceeded your current quota"
• ▸"Requests per minute exceeded"
• ▸"Tokens per minute exceeded" (TPM)
• ▸openai.error.RateLimitError
• ▸anthropic.RateLimitError

Code: drop-in retry helper

A minimal typescript helper that handles the most common version of this error. Copy, paste, adjust the policy to your traffic.

// Drop-in retry helper for 429s with exponential backoff + jitter.
// Use the response's 'retry-after' header when present, fall back to exponential.
export async function callWithRetry<T>(
  fn: () => Promise<Response>,
  parse: (r: Response) => Promise<T>,
  opts: { maxRetries?: number; baseMs?: number; capMs?: number } = {},
): Promise<T> {
  const { maxRetries = 5, baseMs = 500, capMs = 30_000 } = opts;
  let attempt = 0;
  while (true) {
    const res = await fn();
    if (res.status !== 429 && res.status < 500) return parse(res);
    if (attempt >= maxRetries) return parse(res);
    const retryAfter = Number(res.headers.get('retry-after'));
    const backoff = retryAfter > 0
      ? retryAfter * 1000
      : Math.min(capMs, baseMs * 2 ** attempt) * (0.5 + Math.random() * 0.5);
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, backoff));
    attempt += 1;
  }
}