Free-tier LLM APIs kept 429-ing a multi-agent app, so this dev built a provider fallback chain
Willing_Advisor_9998 · reddit · 2026-10-11
The author built a multi-agent debate app with LangGraph (two agents argue, a judge agent rules) and found the hardest part wasn't agent logic but free-tier API reliability.
What broke
- Groq, Gemini and OpenRouter rate-limit and fail in different ways
- A single 429 mid-debate killed the whole run
- Agents got stuck in loops; tracking conversation state was harder than expected
What worked
- A fallback chain: on a 429, automatically retry with the next provider
- Keeping debate state separate from provider logic so failover doesn't break the conversation
They published a live demo and asked the community how others handle rate limits and provider failover in agent projects.
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