rate-limiter

What This Skill Does

The Rate Limiter skill for OpenClaw acts as an intelligent generator for API traffic management configurations. Instead of manual implementation of complex rate-limiting logic, this skill interprets natural language requests to produce production-ready code. It excels at creating middleware for frameworks like Express.js, setting up Redis-backed distributed counters, and defining tiered access policies. By parsing your specific needs—such as IP-based, user-tier, or endpoint-specific constraints—it generates boilerplate-free, secure, and compliant rate-limiting headers, ensuring your APIs remain resilient against abuse, scrapers, and brute-force attacks.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your local OpenClaw environment, execute the following command in your terminal:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/lxgicstudios/rate-limiter

Ensure you are using Node.js 18 or higher to take advantage of the latest runtime improvements required by the underlying generator.

Use Cases

This skill is highly recommended for developers who need to implement security measures without deep-diving into documentation for libraries like express-rate-limit. Common scenarios include:

• Protecting sensitive authentication endpoints against brute-force attacks.
• Implementing tiered usage models where free users receive lower limits compared to enterprise subscribers.
• Distributing load across multiple server instances by configuring Redis as a shared storage backend.
• Managing high-traffic API endpoints to prevent server resource exhaustion.

Example Prompts

1. "Generate a rate limiter for an Express API that allows 50 requests per minute per user, using Redis to ensure it works across my load-balanced cluster."
2. "I need a security configuration for my login endpoint that restricts users to 5 attempts every 15 minutes to prevent password guessing."
3. "Create a tiered rate-limiting policy where basic users get 200 requests/day, but premium subscribers get 5000 requests/day using a sliding window algorithm."

Tips & Limitations

To maximize effectiveness, always prioritize Redis for production environments to avoid consistency issues across server nodes. Start with generous limits and monitor your logs before tightening them to prevent accidental disruption of valid users. Remember that while this tool generates excellent middleware, it is your responsibility to ensure the implementation is correctly mounted in your API pipeline. As a best practice, always return X-RateLimit-Remaining headers to allow client applications to throttle their own requests gracefully, reducing the likelihood of hard 429 errors.