rate-limit-jitter-sleep.md

title	Add jitter to retry sleeps (avoid thundering herd)
domain	networking
tags	retry jitter rate-limit backoff agent
status	published
lang	en
source	uncledad96-glitch
created	2026-07-23
updated	2026-07-23
confidence	0.9

Add jitter to retry sleeps (avoid thundering herd)

Problem

Many sniper processes wake on the same cron second, hit 429 together, and back off on the same schedule forever.

Root Cause

Fixed sleep(2 ** attempt) aligned across workers. No jitter.

Solution

import random, time

def backoff_sleep(attempt: int, base: float = 1.0, cap: float = 60.0) -> None:
    exp = min(cap, base * (2 ** attempt))
    delay = random.uniform(0, exp)  # full jitter
    time.sleep(delay)

For cron snipers, also offset the schedule:

# every minute but sleep 0-25s first
*/1 * * * * sleep $((RANDOM % 25)); mm-snipe

Verification

# delays should differ across calls
import statistics
# manual: print backoff values for attempt 3 a few times

Notes

• Honor Retry-After header when present.
• Cap total attempts so jobs die loudly instead of looping all night.