API Guardrails for Agents

Rate limiting and retry protection for AI agents calling external APIs

Problem

Connecting an AI agent to an API is only half the problem: what happens on rate limits, how to stop repeated requests from disrupting a workflow, and how much control should sit in between, are all unresolved. Developers end up reimplementing the same safeguards in every integration.

Solution

A lightweight middle layer between agents and third-party APIs that handles rate limiting, backoff retries, deduplication, and circuit breaking, plus per-call audit logs and a manual pause switch, so developers can run agents in production safely.

Users

Indie developers and small teams putting AI agents into production systems

MVP

Proxy-style gateway with configurable target APIs and rate rules; automatic backoff retries and request deduplication; structured per-call logs; per-agent pause/resume switch; simple usage dashboard

Revenue

Usage-based pricing per calls, free tier then per-10k-call charges, or per-project subscription

Why now

Agents are moving from demos to production and rate limits/retries are a common pitfall; a solo dev can wrap mature gateway components instead of building low-level plumbing