Exa Rate Limits

Overview

Handle Exa API rate limits gracefully. Default limit is 10 QPS (queries per second) across all endpoints. Rate limit errors return HTTP 429 with a simple

{ "error": "rate limit exceeded" }

Rate Limit Structure

/search

/find-similar

/contents

/answer

Prerequisites

• exa-js

  SDK installed
• Understanding of async/await patterns

Instructions

Step 1: Exponential Backoff with Jitter

import Exa from "exa-js";

const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY);

async function withBackoff<T>(
  operation: () => Promise<T>,
  config = { maxRetries: 5, baseDelayMs: 1000, maxDelayMs: 32000 }
): Promise<T> {
  for (let attempt = 0; attempt <= config.maxRetries; attempt++) {
    try {
      return await operation();
    } catch (err: any) {
      const status = err.status || err.response?.status;
      // Only retry on 429 (rate limit) and 5xx (server errors)
      if (status !== 429 && (status < 500 || status >= 600)) throw err;
      if (attempt === config.maxRetries) throw err;

      // Exponential delay with random jitter to prevent thundering herd
      const exponentialDelay = config.baseDelayMs * Math.pow(2, attempt);
      const jitter = Math.random() * 500;
      const delay = Math.min(exponentialDelay + jitter, config.maxDelayMs);

      console.log(`[Exa] ${status} — retry ${attempt + 1}/${config.maxRetries} in ${delay.toFixed(0)}ms`);
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, delay));
    }
  }
  throw new Error("Unreachable");
}

// Usage
const results = await withBackoff(() =>
  exa.searchAndContents("AI research", { numResults: 5, text: true })
);

Step 2: Request Queue with Concurrency Control

import PQueue from "p-queue";

// Limit to 8 concurrent requests (under the 10 QPS limit)
const exaQueue = new PQueue({
  concurrency: 8,
  interval: 1000,    // per second
  intervalCap: 10,   // max 10 per interval (matches Exa's QPS limit)
});

async function queuedSearch(query: string, opts: any = {}) {
  return exaQueue.add(() => exa.searchAndContents(query, opts));
}

// Batch many queries safely
async function batchSearch(queries: string[]) {
  const results = await Promise.all(
    queries.map(q => queuedSearch(q, { numResults: 5, text: true }))
  );
  return results;
}

Step 3: Adaptive Rate Limiter

class AdaptiveRateLimiter {
  private currentDelay = 100; // ms between requests
  private minDelay = 50;
  private maxDelay = 5000;
  private consecutiveSuccesses = 0;
  private lastRequestTime = 0;

  async execute<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    const now = Date.now();
    const elapsed = now - this.lastRequestTime;
    if (elapsed < this.currentDelay) {
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, this.currentDelay - elapsed));
    }

    try {
      this.lastRequestTime = Date.now();
      const result = await fn();
      this.consecutiveSuccesses++;

      // Speed up after 10 consecutive successes
      if (this.consecutiveSuccesses >= 10) {
        this.currentDelay = Math.max(this.minDelay, this.currentDelay * 0.8);
        this.consecutiveSuccesses = 0;
      }
      return result;
    } catch (err: any) {
      if (err.status === 429) {
        // Slow down on rate limit
        this.currentDelay = Math.min(this.maxDelay, this.currentDelay * 2);
        this.consecutiveSuccesses = 0;
        console.log(`[Exa] Rate limited. New delay: ${this.currentDelay}ms`);
      }
      throw err;
    }
  }
}

const limiter = new AdaptiveRateLimiter();

// Combine with backoff
const results = await withBackoff(() =>
  limiter.execute(() => exa.search("query", { numResults: 5 }))
);

Step 4: Batch Processing with Rate Awareness

async function processBatch(
  queries: string[],
  batchSize = 5,
  delayBetweenBatches = 1000
) {
  const allResults = [];

  for (let i = 0; i < queries.length; i += batchSize) {
    const batch = queries.slice(i, i + batchSize);

    // Process batch concurrently
    const batchResults = await Promise.all(
      batch.map(q => withBackoff(() =>
        exa.searchAndContents(q, { numResults: 3, text: true })
      ))
    );
    allResults.push(...batchResults);

    // Pause between batches to stay under rate limit
    if (i + batchSize < queries.length) {
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, delayBetweenBatches));
    }

    console.log(`Processed ${Math.min(i + batchSize, queries.length)}/${queries.length}`);
  }

  return allResults;
}

Error Handling

p-queue

delayBetweenBatches

Examples

Simple Retry Wrapper

async function retrySearch(query: string, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let i = 0; i <= maxRetries; i++) {
    try {
      return await exa.search(query, { numResults: 5 });
    } catch (err: any) {
      if (err.status !== 429 || i === maxRetries) throw err;
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 1000 * Math.pow(2, i)));
    }
  }
}

Resources

• Exa Rate Limits
• p-queue

Next Steps

For security configuration, see

exa-security-basics