Handle rate limits of external APIs

Last reviewed: about 1 month ago

Example of how to use Queues to handle rate limits of external APIs.

This tutorial explains how to use Queues to handle rate limits of external APIs by building an application that sends email notifications using Resend ↗. However, you can use this pattern to handle rate limits of any external API.

Resend is a service that allows you to send emails from your application via an API. Resend has a default rate limit ↗ of two requests per second. You will use Queues to handle the rate limit of Resend.

Prerequisites

Sign up for a Cloudflare account ↗.
Install Node.js ↗.

Node.js version manager

Use a Node version manager like Volta ↗ or nvm ↗ to avoid permission issues and change Node.js versions. Wrangler, discussed later in this guide, requires a Node version of 16.17.0 or later.

Sign up for Resend ↗ and generate an API key by following the guide on the Resend documentation ↗.
Additionally, you will need access to Cloudflare Queues.

Queues are included in the monthly subscription cost of your Workers Paid plan, and charges based on operations against your queues. Refer to Pricing for more details.

Before you can use Queues, you must enable it via the Cloudflare dashboard ↗. You need a Workers Paid plan to enable Queues.

To enable Queues:

Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard ↗.
Go to Workers & Pages > Queues.
Select Enable Queues.

1. Create a new Workers application

To get started, create a Worker application using the create-cloudflare CLI ↗. Open a terminal window and run the following command:

npm create cloudflare@latest -- resend-rate-limit-queue

yarn create cloudflare@latest resend-rate-limit-queue

pnpm create cloudflare@latest resend-rate-limit-queue

For setup, select the following options:

For What would you like to start with?, choose Hello World example.
For Which template would you like to use?, choose Hello World Worker.
For Which language do you want to use?, choose TypeScript.
For Do you want to use git for version control?, choose Yes.
For Do you want to deploy your application?, choose No (we will be making some changes before deploying).

Then, go to your newly created directory:

cd resend-rate-limit-queue

2. Set up a Queue

You need to create a Queue and a binding to your Worker. Run the following command to create a Queue named rate-limit-queue:

npx wrangler queues create rate-limit-queue

Creating queue rate-limit-queue.
Created queue rate-limit-queue.

Add Queue bindings to `wrangler.toml`

In your wrangler.toml file, add the following:

[[queues.producers]]
binding = "EMAIL_QUEUE"
queue = "rate-limit-queue"

[[queues.consumers]]
queue = "rate-limit-queue"
max_batch_size = 2
max_batch_timeout = 10
max_retries = 3

It is important to include the max_batch_size of two to the consumer queue is important because the Resend API has a default rate limit of two requests per second. This batch size allows the queue to process the message in the batch size of two. If the batch size is less than two, the queue will wait for 10 seconds to collect the next message. If no more messages are available, the queue will process the message in the batch. For more information, refer to the Batching, Retries and Delays documentation

Your final wrangler.toml file should look similar to the example below.

#:schema node_modules/wrangler/config-schema.json
name = "resend-rate-limit-queue"
main = "src/index.ts"
compatibility_date = "2024-09-09"
compatibility_flags = ["nodejs_compat"]

[[queues.producers]]
binding = "EMAIL_QUEUE"
queue = "rate-limit-queue"

[[queues.consumers]]
queue = "rate-limit-queue"
max_batch_size = 2
max_batch_timeout = 10
max_retries = 3

3. Add bindings to environment

Add the bindings to the environment interface in worker-configuration.d.ts, so TypeScript correctly types the bindings. Type the queue as Queue<any>. Refer to the following step for instructions on how to change this type.

interface Env {
  EMAIL_QUEUE: Queue<any>;
}

4. Send message to the queue

The application will send a message to the queue when the Worker receives a request. For simplicity, you will send the email address as a message to the queue. A new message will be sent to the queue with a delay of one second.

export default {
  async fetch(req: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    try {
      await env.EMAIL_QUEUE.send(
        { email: await req.text() },
        { delaySeconds: 1 },
      );
      return new Response("Success!");
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response("Error!", { status: 500 });
    }
  },
};

This will accept requests to any subpath and forwards the request’s body. It expects that the request body to contain only an email. In production, you should check that the request was a POST request. You should also avoid sending such sensitive information (email) directly to the queue. Instead, you can send a message to the queue that contains a unique identifier for the user. Then, your consumer queue can use the unique identifier to look up the email address in a database and use that to send the email.

5. Process the messages in the queue

After the message is sent to the queue, it will be processed by the consumer Worker. The consumer Worker will process the message and send the email.

Since you have not configured Resend yet, you will log the message to the console. After you configure Resend, you will use it to send the email.

Add the queue() handler as shown below:

interface Message {
  email: string;
}

export default {
  async fetch(req: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    try {
      await env.EMAIL_QUEUE.send(
        { email: await req.text() },
        { delaySeconds: 1 },
      );
      return new Response("Success!");
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response("Error!", { status: 500 });
    }
  },
  async queue(batch: MessageBatch<Message>, env: Env): Promise<void> {
    for (const message of batch.messages) {
      try {
        console.log(message.body.email);
        // After configuring Resend, you can send email
        message.ack();
      } catch (e) {
        console.error(e);
        message.retry({ delaySeconds: 5 });
      }
    }
  },
};

The above queue() handler will log the email address to the console and send the email. It will also retry the message if sending the email fails. The delaySeconds is set to five seconds to avoid sending the email too quickly.

To test the application, run the following command:

npm run dev

Use the following cURL command to send a request to the application:

curl -X POST -d "test@example.com" http://localhost:8787/

[wrangler:inf] POST / 200 OK (2ms)
QueueMessage {
  attempts: 1,
  body: { email: 'test@example.com' },
  timestamp: 2024-09-12T13:48:07.236Z,
  id: '72a25ff18dd441f5acb6086b9ce87c8c'
}

6. Set up Resend

To call the Resend API, you need to configure the Resend API key. Create a .dev.vars file in the root of your project and add the following:

RESEND_API_KEY='your-resend-api-key'

Replace your-resend-api-key with your actual Resend API key.

Next, update the Env interface in worker-configuration.d.ts to include the RESEND_API_KEY variable.

interface Env {
  EMAIL_QUEUE: Queue<any>;
  RESEND_API_KEY: string;
}

Lastly, install the resend package ↗ using the following command:

npm install resend

You can now use the RESEND_API_KEY variable in your code.

7. Send email with Resend

In your src/index.ts file, import the Resend package and update the queue() handler to send the email.

import { Resend } from "resend";

interface Message {
  email: string;
}

export default {
  async fetch(req: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    try {
      await env.EMAIL_QUEUE.send(
        { email: await req.text() },
        { delaySeconds: 1 },
      );
      return new Response("Success!");
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response("Error!", { status: 500 });
    }
  },
  async queue(batch: MessageBatch<Message>, env: Env): Promise<void> {
    // Initialize Resend
    const resend = new Resend(env.RESEND_API_KEY);
    for (const message of batch.messages) {
      try {
        console.log(message.body.email);
        // send email
        const sendEmail = await resend.emails.send({
          from: "onboarding@resend.dev",
          to: [message.body.email],
          subject: "Hello World",
          html: "<strong>Sending an email from Worker!</strong>",
        });

        // check if the email failed
        if (sendEmail.error) {
          console.error(sendEmail.error);
          message.retry({ delaySeconds: 5 });
        } else {
          // if success, ack the message
          message.ack();
        }
        message.ack();
      } catch (e) {
        console.error(e);
        message.retry({ delaySeconds: 5 });
      }
    }
  },
};

The queue() handler will now send the email using the Resend API. It also checks if sending the email failed and will retry the message.

The final script is included below:

import { Resend } from "resend";

interface Message {
  email: string;
}

export default {
  async fetch(req: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    try {
      await env.EMAIL_QUEUE.send(
        { email: await req.text() },
        { delaySeconds: 1 },
      );
      return new Response("Success!");
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response("Error!", { status: 500 });
    }
  },
  async queue(batch: MessageBatch<Message>, env: Env): Promise<void> {
    // Initialize Resend
    const resend = new Resend(env.RESEND_API_KEY);
    for (const message of batch.messages) {
      try {
        // send email
        const sendEmail = await resend.emails.send({
          from: "onboarding@resend.dev",
          to: [message.body.email],
          subject: "Hello World",
          html: "<strong>Sending an email from Worker!</strong>",
        });

        // check if the email failed
        if (sendEmail.error) {
          console.error(sendEmail.error);
          message.retry({ delaySeconds: 5 });
        } else {
          // if success, ack the message
          message.ack();
        }
      } catch (e) {
        console.error(e);
        message.retry({ delaySeconds: 5 });
      }
    }
  },
};

To test the application, start the development server using the following command:

npm run dev

Use the following cURL command to send a request to the application:

curl -X POST -d "delivered@resend.dev" http://localhost:8787/

On the Resend dashboard, you should see that the email was sent to the provided email address.

8. Deploy your Worker

To deploy your Worker, run the following command:

npx wrangler deploy

Lastly, add the Resend API key using the following command:

npx wrangler secret put RESEND_API_KEY

Enter the value of your API key. Your API key will get added to your project. You can now use the RESEND_API_KEY variable in your code.

You have successfully created a Worker which can send emails using the Resend API respecting rate limits.

To test your Worker, you could use the following cURL request. Replace <YOUR_WORKER_URL> with the URL of your deployed Worker.

curl -X POST -d "delivered@resend.dev" <YOUR_WORKER_URL>

Refer to the GitHub repository ↗ for the complete code for this tutorial. If you are using Hono ↗, you can refer to the Hono example ↗.

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