requestflow

stop getting 429 ratelimited like an amateur. intelligent http scheduling and pacing for discord.py.

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why this exists

when your bot grows, commands collide, background loops spam discord, and unmanaged asyncio.gather blasts 300 requests in 10 milliseconds.

discord hits back with HTTP 429: Global rate limit hit. your whole bot freezes for everyone. commands fail. messages get dropped.

requestflow fixes this. it sits between discord.py and the discord api, intelligently pacing your requests with gcra rate-limiting, cross-guild fairness, and priority queuing.

raw discord.py vs requestflow (real 300-channel burst test)

raw discord.py (asyncio.gather):
- requested: 300
- created: 240
- dropped/failed: 60 (20% failure rate)
- terminal: spammed dozens of "WARNING Global rate limit hit. Retrying in 0.30s"

requestflow:
- requested: 300
- created: 300 (100% success rate)
- dropped/failed: 0
- terminal: dead silent. zero 429s. zero bans.

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install

pip install requestflow

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quickstart (2 lines)

just attach it to your bot. every single channel.send(), message.delete(), cog, and slash command is automatically scheduled, paced, and protected.

import discord
from discord.ext import commands
from requestflow import RequestFlow

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix="!", intents=discord.Intents.default())

# 1. initialize requestflow
flow = RequestFlow(bot, global_rate_limit=40.0, max_concurrency=16)

@bot.event
async def setup_hook():
    # 2. start the engine
    await flow.start()

@bot.command()
async def ping(ctx):
    # automatically prioritized and paced without changing your code
    await ctx.send("pong")

bot.run("TOKEN")

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or use managed priorities

want your slash commands and moderation actions to jump ahead of massive background sweeps?

from requestflow import RequestFlow, Priority

async with RequestFlow() as flow:
    # critical interaction responses jump to the front of the queue
    await flow.submit(
        interaction.response.send_message,
        "fast response",
        priority=Priority.CRITICAL,
        is_interaction=True
    )

    # background audits run smoothly without blocking users
    await flow.submit(
        guild.fetch_members,
        limit=1000,
        priority=Priority.LOW,
        guild_id=guild.id
    )

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features

• gcra rate pacing: smooths request bursts before discord gets angry (defaults to 40 req/s, 50 req/s ceiling).
• zero 429 stampedes: eliminates the thundering herd problem when rate limits unlock.
• cross-guild fairness: deficit round-robin ensures one spammy server never starves your other servers.
• priority queues: critical slash commands and moderator bans bypass background syncs.
• starvation prevention: low-priority jobs age up over time so they never get stuck forever.
• in-flight deduplication: coalesces duplicate reads so identical queries only hit discord once.
• clean metrics: real-time p50/p95 latency and queue stats with zero external telemetry.

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live metrics

inspect what your bot is doing anytime:

print(flow.stats)

MetricsSnapshot(
  submitted=300,
  completed=300,
  failed=0,
  queue_wait_p50=5.0ms,
  exec_latency_p50=32.0ms,
  active_guilds=1,
  rate_limit_429_count=0
)

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test it yourself

run the included stress test bot against your own discord server:

python stress_bot.py --token YOUR_TOKEN

in discord:

• !burst_raw 350 — watch raw discord.py drop requests and spam 429 warnings
• !cleanup — clear the test channels
• !burst_flow 350 — watch requestflow create all 200 with 100% success and 0 errors
• !stats — see real-time latency and queue percentiles

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community & dev

need help, got feature ideas, or building massive bots? join us:

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license

MIT