exa-rate-limits
Implement Exa rate limiting, exponential backoff, and request queuing. Use when handling 429 errors, implementing retry logic, or optimizing API request throughput for Exa. Trigger with phrases like "exa rate limit", "exa throttling", "exa 429", "exa retry", "exa backoff", "exa QPS".
67
82%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
—
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Quality
Discovery
100%Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.
This is a well-crafted skill description that clearly defines its scope (Exa API rate limiting and retry logic), provides explicit 'Use when' guidance with concrete scenarios, and includes a comprehensive set of natural trigger terms. It uses proper third-person voice and is concise without being vague. The Exa-specific qualifier throughout ensures minimal conflict risk with other skills.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: 'rate limiting', 'exponential backoff', and 'request queuing'. These are distinct, well-defined technical capabilities. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (implement rate limiting, exponential backoff, request queuing) and 'when' (handling 429 errors, implementing retry logic, optimizing API request throughput) with explicit trigger phrases. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Excellent coverage of natural trigger terms including 'exa rate limit', 'exa throttling', 'exa 429', 'exa retry', 'exa backoff', 'exa QPS'. These are terms users would naturally use when encountering these issues. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly distinctive due to the 'Exa' qualifier on all triggers and the specific focus on rate limiting/backoff patterns for the Exa API. Unlikely to conflict with generic retry or rate limiting skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
64%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a solid, actionable skill with complete, executable TypeScript examples covering multiple rate-limiting strategies for the Exa API. Its main weaknesses are the length (four distinct patterns in one file without progressive disclosure to supporting files) and the lack of validation/verification steps for batch operations. The error handling table is a nice touch but doesn't substitute for inline feedback loops in the workflow.
Suggestions
Add validation checkpoints to the batch processing step, such as checking result counts, logging failures, and implementing a retry-or-skip decision for individual failed queries within a batch.
Consider splitting Steps 3-4 (Adaptive Rate Limiter and Batch Processing) into a separate referenced file to keep the main SKILL.md focused on the core backoff + queue pattern.
Remove the Prerequisites section — Claude already understands async/await and SDK installation.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The content is mostly efficient with good code examples, but includes some unnecessary elements: the Prerequisites section ('Understanding of async/await patterns' is something Claude knows), the rate limit table repeating '10' and 'Same pool' four times, and the 'Unreachable' throw comment. The adaptive rate limiter (Step 3) adds significant length for a pattern that may not be needed alongside the queue approach. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | All code examples are fully executable TypeScript with proper imports, concrete configurations, and copy-paste ready patterns. The backoff function, queue setup, adaptive limiter, and batch processor are all complete and immediately usable with the exa-js SDK. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The steps are clearly sequenced and build on each other (backoff → queue → adaptive limiter → batch processing), but there are no explicit validation checkpoints. For batch operations that could fail partway through, there's no guidance on verifying results, handling partial failures, or recovering from mid-batch errors. The error handling table helps but doesn't constitute a feedback loop. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The content is well-structured with clear sections and a logical progression, but at ~150 lines of code it's quite long for a single file. The adaptive rate limiter and batch processing could be split into separate referenced files. The reference to 'exa-security-basics' is good, but there are no bundle files to offload the more advanced patterns. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 Passed |
Validation
81%Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.
Validation — 9 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
| Criteria | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
allowed_tools_field | 'allowed-tools' contains unusual tool name(s) | Warning |
frontmatter_unknown_keys | Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata | Warning |
Total | 9 / 11 Passed | |
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