Slow Web - An HTTP Request Governor

Slow Web is a way to limit the number of requests to a domain within a certain period of time. It is inspired by Chris Kampmeier's FakeWeb.

For example, the GitHub API only allows for 60 requests per minute. Slow Web can monitor the number of calls to that domain and will sleep on the next request that is over the limit.

Slow Web follows the rules of Semantic Versioning.

To install Slow Web, simply install the gem:

$ [sudo] gem install slowweb

And specify the domain to limit.

require 'slowweb'
SlowWeb.limit('example.com', 10, 60)

This restricts the example.com domain to only allowing 10 requests every 60 seconds.

Because SlowWeb attaches to the low-level Net::HTTP class, all API gems should work. For example, you can use the Octopi API to access GitHub information and use SlowWeb to restrict calls automatically.

require 'slowweb'
SlowWeb.limit('github.com', 60, 60)  # 60 requests per minute

# Use up all the API requests for this minute
60.times do |i|
  tpw = Octopi::User.find('mojombo')
end

# This request will wait until a minute after the first request was sent
wanstrath = Octopi::User.find('defunkt')

This code will retrieve user information on Tom Preston-Warner (mojombo) sixty times and then attempts to access user information for Chris Wanstrath (defunkt). However when the API call is made to view defunkt, SlowWeb will cause your application sleep until a minute has passed since your first request to mojombo.

If you'd like to contribute to SlowWeb, start by forking the repository on GitHub:

http://github.com/benbjohnson/slowweb

Then follow these steps to send your changes:

1. Clone down your fork
2. Create a topic branch to contain your change
3. Code
4. All code must have MiniTest::Unit test coverage.
5. If you are adding new functionality, document it in the README
6. If necessary, rebase your commits into logical chunks, without errors
7. Push the branch up to GitHub
8. Send me a pull request for your branch