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errors: improve rate limit error messages for AI agents #2386

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errors: improve rate limit error messages for AI agents #2386

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44aa810
errors: improve rate limit error messages for AI agents
danmoseley Apr 25, 2026
d480ff7
errors: fix flaky rate limit tests
danmoseley Apr 25, 2026
52d8383
errors: extract requireErrorText and assertContextHasError test helpers
danmoseley Apr 25, 2026
edbbca3
Fix edge cases: sub-second rate limit durations and UTF-8 BOM
danmoseley Apr 25, 2026
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26 changes: 26 additions & 0 deletions pkg/errors/error.go
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2,8 +2,10 @@ package errors

import (
"context"
stderrors "errors"
"fmt"
"net/http"
"time"

"github.com/github/github-mcp-server/pkg/utils"
"github.com/google/go-github/v82/github"
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -159,6 +161,30 @@ func NewGitHubAPIErrorResponse(ctx context.Context, message string, resp *github
if ctx != nil {
_, _ = addGitHubAPIErrorToContext(ctx, apiErr) // Explicitly ignore error for graceful handling
}

var rateLimitErr *github.RateLimitError
if stderrors.As(err, &rateLimitErr) {
resetTime := rateLimitErr.Rate.Reset.Time
if !resetTime.IsZero() && resetTime.After(time.Now()) {
retryIn := time.Until(resetTime).Round(time.Second)
return utils.NewToolResultError(fmt.Sprintf(
"%s: GitHub API rate limit exceeded. Retry after %v.", message, retryIn))
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}
return utils.NewToolResultError(fmt.Sprintf(
"%s: GitHub API rate limit exceeded. Wait before retrying.", message))
}

var abuseErr *github.AbuseRateLimitError
if stderrors.As(err, &abuseErr) {
if abuseErr.RetryAfter != nil && *abuseErr.RetryAfter > 0 {
return utils.NewToolResultError(fmt.Sprintf(
"%s: GitHub secondary rate limit exceeded. Retry after %v.",
message, abuseErr.RetryAfter.Round(time.Second)))
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}
return utils.NewToolResultError(fmt.Sprintf(
"%s: GitHub secondary rate limit exceeded. Wait before retrying.", message))
}

return utils.NewToolResultErrorFromErr(message, err)
}

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