navan-rate-limits

Navan Rate Limits

Overview

Navan does not publicly document its API rate limits. Developers typically discover thresholds empirically when bulk data pulls or batch operations begin returning HTTP 429 responses. This skill implements defensive rate-limiting patterns that adapt to server responses rather than relying on fixed quotas — inspecting response headers, applying exponential backoff with jitter, and queuing requests to prevent flooding.

Prerequisites

• Active Navan OAuth 2.0 credentials (see navan-install-auth)
• Node.js 18+ (examples use native fetch)
• Understanding of HTTP 429 status code and Retry-After header semantics

Instructions

Step 1: Build an Adaptive Retry Wrapper

interface RetryOptions {
  maxRetries: number;
  baseDelayMs: number;
  maxDelayMs: number;
}

async function navanFetch(
  url: string,
  options: RequestInit,
  retry: RetryOptions = { maxRetries: 5, baseDelayMs: 1000, maxDelayMs: 30000 }
): Promise<Response> {
  let lastError: Error | null = null;

  for (let attempt = 0; attempt <= retry.maxRetries; attempt++) {
    const response = await fetch(url, options);

    // Log rate limit headers when present (undocumented but sometimes returned)
    const remaining = response.headers.get('X-RateLimit-Remaining');
    const limit = response.headers.get('X-RateLimit-Limit');
    if (remaining !== null) {
      console.log(`Rate limit: ${remaining}/${limit} remaining`);
    }

    if (response.status !== 429) return response;

    // Extract delay from Retry-After header or calculate exponential backoff
    const retryAfter = response.headers.get('Retry-After');
    let delayMs: number;

    if (retryAfter) {
      delayMs = parseInt(retryAfter, 10) * 1000;
      console.log(`429 received — Retry-After: ${retryAfter}s`);
    } else {
      // Exponential backoff with jitter
      delayMs = Math.min(
        retry.baseDelayMs * Math.pow(2, attempt) + Math.random() * 1000,
        retry.maxDelayMs
      );
      console.log(`429 received — backoff: ${Math.round(delayMs)}ms (attempt ${attempt + 1})`);
    }

    await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, delayMs));
    lastError = new Error(`Rate limited after ${attempt + 1} attempts`);
  }

  throw lastError ?? new Error('Max retries exceeded');
}

Step 2: Implement a Request Queue for Bulk Operations

class NavanRequestQueue {
  private queue: Array<() => Promise<void>> = [];
  private running = 0;
  private readonly concurrency: number;
  private readonly delayBetweenMs: number;

  constructor(concurrency = 3, delayBetweenMs = 500) {
    this.concurrency = concurrency;
    this.delayBetweenMs = delayBetweenMs;
  }

  async add<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    while (this.running >= this.concurrency) {
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 100));
    }
    this.running++;
    try {
      const result = await fn();
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, this.delayBetweenMs));
      return result;
    } finally {
      this.running--;
    }
  }

  async drain(): Promise<void> {
    while (this.running > 0) {
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 100));
    }
  }
}

Step 3: Use the Queue for Batch Data Pulls

const queue = new NavanRequestQueue(3, 500); // 3 concurrent, 500ms gap
const accessToken = process.env.NAVAN_ACCESS_TOKEN!;

async function fetchAllExpenses(startDate: string, endDate: string) {
  let page = 1;
  let hasMore = true;
  const allExpenses: any[] = [];

  while (hasMore) {
    const currentPage = page;
    const result = await queue.add(async () => {
      const res = await navanFetch(
        `https://api.navan.com/v1/expenses?page=${currentPage}&start_date=${startDate}&end_date=${endDate}`,
        { headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${accessToken}` } }
      );
      if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}: ${await res.text()}`);
      return res.json();
    });

    allExpenses.push(...result.data);
    hasMore = result.has_more;
    page++;
  }

  return allExpenses;
}

Step 4: Log and Monitor Rate Limit Signals

function logRateLimitHeaders(response: Response, endpoint: string): void {
  const headers = [
    'X-RateLimit-Limit',
    'X-RateLimit-Remaining',
    'X-RateLimit-Reset',
    'Retry-After'
  ];

  const found: Record<string, string> = {};
  for (const h of headers) {
    const val = response.headers.get(h);
    if (val) found[h] = val;
  }

  if (Object.keys(found).length > 0) {
    console.log(`[${endpoint}] Rate limit headers:`, found);
  }
}

Output

A resilient API client that handles Navan's undocumented rate limits through adaptive retry logic and controlled concurrency. The queue prevents bulk operations from triggering 429 responses, and the retry wrapper recovers gracefully when limits are hit.

Error Handling

Error	Code	Solution
Too Many Requests	429	Retry with exponential backoff; inspect Retry-After header
Gateway Timeout	504	Reduce concurrency in queue; retry after 5-10 seconds
Service Unavailable	503	Navan maintenance window; retry with longer backoff (30-60s)
Unauthorized	401	Token expired during long batch operation; refresh OAuth token and retry
Bad Gateway	502	Transient upstream error; retry once after 2 seconds

Examples

Quick test for rate limit headers:

curl -s -D - -o /dev/null \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NAVAN_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  https://api.navan.com/v1/users?limit=1 2>&1 | grep -i 'rate\|retry'

Bulk export with throttling (Python):

import time
import requests

def navan_get(url, token, max_retries=5):
    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        resp = requests.get(url, headers={'Authorization': f'Bearer {token}'})
        if resp.status_code != 429:
            return resp
        delay = int(resp.headers.get('Retry-After', 2 ** attempt))
        print(f'Rate limited — waiting {delay}s (attempt {attempt + 1})')
        time.sleep(delay)
    raise Exception('Max retries exceeded')

Resources

• Navan Help Center — Official documentation and support articles
• Navan Integrations — Integration partner ecosystem
• HTTP 429 Specification (RFC 6585) — Standard for rate limiting responses

Next Steps

After implementing rate limiting, see navan-security-basics for credential rotation and token management, or navan-data-sync for building paginated data export pipelines.