When you script against the Airtable API, pace requests at 200ms apart per base and batch up to 10 records per request to stay under the 5-per-second cap. If you hit a 429, dont retry immediately: the docs say to wait a full 30 seconds. For read-heavy agents, put a caching proxy in front rather than polling the API directly.

Context: Official docs (Rate Limits): documents that the API is limited to 5 requests per second per base, plus 50 per second across all traffic from a given user or service account. Exceeding either returns 429, and you must wait 30 seconds before subsequent requests succeed.