What Is a Rate Limiting Header?
A rate limiting header is metadata an API returns to communicate quota state, commonly the limit, the remaining count, and the reset time. Well-behaved clients read these values to slow down before they are blocked. When the quota is exhausted, the server usually returns a 429 along with a retry hint.
Why it matters
Without quota signals, clients only learn about a limit after being rejected. Rate limiting headers let a client pace requests proactively, which matters for CI jobs that hit provider APIs like GitHub repeatedly.
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