A cap on how many API requests can be made in a window of time. Hit it and the API starts rejecting requests with a 429 status. Multi-agent systems hit rate limits constantly because every agent queries the same source — pre-computed shared state is the standard fix.
Related terms
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of rules that lets two pieces of software talk to each other. APIs are how AI agents connect to the outside world — fetch...
Circuit Breaker
A pattern that stops calling a failing service after a threshold of errors, waits a cooldown, then probes to see if it recovere...
Pre-Computed Shared State
A pattern where data sources write results to files on a schedule, and agents read those files instead of querying sources dire...
Build with this on OTP
OTP encodes coordination intelligence so AI agent teams can run on it. If this term shows up in your team's playbook, it belongs in your OOS.
Found an issue with this definition? Tell us and we'll fix it.