How do I handle 'GitHub API rate limit exceeded' errors during automation?
This error occurs when API requests exceed GitHub’s limit. Authenticate API calls, reduce request frequency, or switch to a higher limit with a personal access token.
The 'GitHub API rate limit exceeded' error is triggered when an application or user exceeds the allowed number of GitHub API requests within an hour, particularly when making unauthenticated requests. GitHub imposes rate limits to ensure fair usage and avoid overloading their servers. To bypass these limits, first authenticate your API requests by including a personal access token, which significantly increases the request limit from 60 to 5,000 per hour. Create a token from GitHub under Settings > Developer settings > Personal access tokens, then include it in API calls as an HTTP header (Authorization: token YOUR_TOKEN). If you are using GitHub in an automated context, consider adding caching mechanisms to reduce duplicate requests or using GitHub’s GraphQL API, which allows more data in fewer requests compared to the REST API. Additionally, ensure that your requests are optimized to avoid unnecessary calls, using conditional requests if possible. Properly authenticating and optimizing requests should help manage the rate limit effectively.
