Fireflies.ai Rate Limits

Overview

Handle Fireflies.ai GraphQL API rate limits with exponential backoff and request queuing. Fireflies enforces per-plan limits and per-operation limits.

Rate Limit Reference

Per-Plan Limits

Per-Operation Limits

Instructions

Step 1: Detect Rate Limits in Responses

interface FirefliesError {
  message: string;
  code: string;
  extensions?: { status: number };
}

function isRateLimited(response: any): boolean {
  return response.errors?.some(
    (e: FirefliesError) =>
      e.code === "too_many_requests" ||
      e.extensions?.status === 429
  );
}

Step 2: Exponential Backoff with Jitter

async function firefliesQueryWithRetry<T>(
  query: string,
  variables?: Record<string, any>,
  maxRetries = 5
): Promise<T> {
  const FIREFLIES_API = "https://api.fireflies.ai/graphql";

  for (let attempt = 0; attempt <= maxRetries; attempt++) {
    const res = await fetch(FIREFLIES_API, {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.FIREFLIES_API_KEY}`,
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ query, variables }),
    });

    const json = await res.json();

    if (!isRateLimited(json)) {
      if (json.errors) throw new Error(json.errors[0].message);
      return json.data;
    }

    if (attempt === maxRetries) {
      throw new Error(`Rate limited after ${maxRetries} retries`);
    }

    // Exponential backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s + jitter
    const baseDelay = 1000 * Math.pow(2, attempt);
    const jitter = Math.random() * 500;
    const delay = Math.min(baseDelay + jitter, 32000);

    console.log(`Rate limited. Retry ${attempt + 1}/${maxRetries} in ${delay.toFixed(0)}ms`);
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, delay));
  }

  throw new Error("Unreachable");
}

Step 3: Request Queue for Batch Operations

import PQueue from "p-queue";

// Business plan: 60 req/min = 1 req/sec safe rate
const firefliesQueue = new PQueue({
  concurrency: 1,
  interval: 1100,
  intervalCap: 1,
});

async function queuedQuery<T>(query: string, variables?: Record<string, any>): Promise<T> {
  return firefliesQueue.add(() => firefliesQueryWithRetry<T>(query, variables));
}

// Batch fetch transcripts without hitting rate limits
async function batchFetchTranscripts(ids: string[]) {
  const results = [];
  for (const id of ids) {
    const data = await queuedQuery(`
      query GetTranscript($id: String!) {
        transcript(id: $id) {
          id title date duration
          summary { overview action_items }
        }
      }
    `, { id });
    results.push(data);
  }
  return results;
}

Step 4: Free/Pro Plan Daily Budget Tracker

class DailyBudgetTracker {
  private count = 0;
  private resetDate = new Date().toDateString();
  private readonly dailyLimit: number;

  constructor(plan: "free" | "pro" | "business") {
    this.dailyLimit = plan === "business" ? Infinity : 50;
  }

  canRequest(): boolean {
    this.resetIfNewDay();
    return this.count < this.dailyLimit;
  }

  record(): void {
    this.resetIfNewDay();
    this.count++;
  }

  remaining(): number {
    this.resetIfNewDay();
    return Math.max(0, this.dailyLimit - this.count);
  }

  private resetIfNewDay(): void {
    const today = new Date().toDateString();
    if (today !== this.resetDate) {
      this.count = 0;
      this.resetDate = today;
    }
  }
}

const budget = new DailyBudgetTracker("pro");
if (!budget.canRequest()) {
  console.log("Daily API limit reached. Try again tomorrow.");
}

Error Handling

Output

• Rate-limit-aware GraphQL client with automatic retry
• Request queue preventing burst-induced throttling
• Daily budget tracker for Free/Pro plans

Resources

• Fireflies API Rate Limits
• p-queue

Next Steps

For security configuration, see fireflies-security-basics.