Lightrate Client Ruby

A Ruby gem for interacting with the Lightrate token management API, providing easy-to-use methods for consuming tokens.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'lightrate-client'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install lightrate-client

Usage

Configuration

Configure the client with your API credentials:

require 'lightrate_client'

LightrateClient.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = 'your_api_key'
  config.application_id = 'your_application_id' # required
  config.timeout = 30 # optional, defaults to 30 seconds
  config.retry_attempts = 3 # optional, defaults to 3
  config.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT) # optional, for request logging
end

Basic Usage

# Simple usage - pass your API key and application ID
client = LightrateClient::Client.new('your_api_key', 'your_application_id')

# Or use the convenience method
client = LightrateClient.new_client('your_api_key', 'your_application_id')

# With additional options
client = LightrateClient::Client.new('your_api_key', 'your_application_id',
  timeout: 60
)

# Or configure globally and use the default client
LightrateClient.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = 'your_api_key'
  config.application_id = 'your_application_id'
end
client = LightrateClient.client

Token Consumption Methods

The Lightrate Client provides two methods for consuming tokens, each with different performance characteristics:

🚀 Recommended: Local Token Buckets (consume_local_bucket_token)

Use this method for high-frequency token consumption. It maintains local token buckets that are refilled in batches from the API, dramatically reducing the number of HTTP requests.

# Configure client with default bucket size
client = LightrateClient::Client.new(
  'your_api_key', 
  'your_application_id',
  default_local_bucket_size: 20  # Default bucket size for all operations
)

# Consume tokens using local buckets (fast, reduces API calls)
response = client.consume_local_bucket_token(
  operation: 'send_email',
  user_identifier: 'user123'
)

puts "Success: #{response.success}"
puts "Used local token: #{response.used_local_token}"
puts "Bucket status: #{response.bucket_status}"

# Or consume by path
response = client.consume_local_bucket_token(
  path: '/api/v1/emails/send',
  http_method: 'POST',
  user_identifier: 'user123'
)

Benefits of Local Buckets:

• ⚡ Fast: Most token consumption happens locally without HTTP requests
• 🔄 Efficient: Batches token requests to reduce API calls by 95%+
• 🛡️ Resilient: Continues working even with temporary API outages
• 🎯 Configurable: Customizable bucket sizes for your application needs

🌐 Direct API Calls (consume_tokens)

Use this method for occasional token consumption or when you need immediate API feedback.

# Direct API call - makes HTTP request every time
response = client.consume_tokens(
  operation: 'send_email',
  user_identifier: 'user123',
  tokens_requested: 1
)

puts "Tokens consumed: #{response.tokens_consumed}"
puts "Tokens remaining: #{response.tokens_remaining}"
puts "Throttles: #{response.throttles}"
puts "Rule: #{response.rule.name} (ID: #{response.rule.id})"

When to use Direct API Calls:

• 🔍 Debugging: When you need immediate API feedback
• 📊 Monitoring: For applications that rarely consume tokens
• 🎛️ Control: When you need precise control over token requests
• 🔄 Legacy: For compatibility with existing code

Method Comparison

Feature	Local Buckets	Direct API
Speed	⚡ Very Fast	🐌 Network dependent
API Calls	📉 Minimal (95%+ reduction)	📈 Every request
Resilience	🛡️ High (works offline briefly)	🔗 Requires network
Feedback	📊 Bucket status only	📋 Full API response
Best For	High-frequency usage	Occasional usage

Performance Benefits

Local Token Buckets dramatically improve performance:

• 95%+ reduction in API calls - Instead of making an HTTP request for every token consumption, tokens are fetched in batches
• Sub-millisecond response times - Local token consumption is nearly instant
• Better reliability - Continues working even during brief API outages
• Reduced bandwidth costs - Fewer HTTP requests mean lower network usage

Example Performance Comparison:

# ❌ Slow: Direct API calls
1000.times do
  client.consume_tokens(operation: 'send_email', user_identifier: 'user123', tokens_requested: 1)
  # Each call: ~100-200ms network latency
end
# Total: 1000 API calls, ~100-200 seconds

# ✅ Fast: Local buckets
1000.times do
  client.consume_local_bucket_token(operation: 'send_email', user_identifier: 'user123')
  # Each call: ~0.1ms local operation
end
# Total: ~1 API call, ~0.1 seconds

When to Use Each Method

Use Local Buckets when:

• 🚀 Building high-performance applications
• 📧 Sending bulk emails, SMS, or notifications
• 🔄 Processing webhooks or background jobs
• 📊 Handling user-facing requests that need fast response times
• 🏭 Running production applications with high token usage

Use Direct API when:

• 🔍 Debugging or testing rate limiting
• 📊 Building monitoring dashboards
• 🎛️ Need immediate feedback on token consumption
• 🔄 Migrating from existing implementations
• 📱 Building low-frequency applications (fewer than 10 requests/minute)

Complete Example: High-Performance Token Consumption

require 'lightrate_client'

# Create a client with default bucket size
client = LightrateClient::Client.new(
  ENV['LIGHTRATE_API_KEY'] || 'your_api_key',
  ENV['LIGHTRATE_APPLICATION_ID'] || 'your_application_id',
  default_local_bucket_size: 50  # All operations use this bucket size
)

begin
  # First call: Fetches 50 tokens from API and consumes 1 locally
  response1 = client.consume_local_bucket_token(
    operation: 'send_email',
    user_identifier: 'user123'
  )
  
  puts "First call - Success: #{response1.success}"
  puts "Used local token: #{response1.used_local_token}"
  puts "Bucket status: #{response1.bucket_status}"
  
  # Second call: Consumes from local bucket (no API call!)
  response2 = client.consume_local_bucket_token(
    operation: 'send_email',
    user_identifier: 'user123'
  )
  
  puts "Second call - Success: #{response2.success}"
  puts "Used local token: #{response2.used_local_token}"
  puts "Bucket status: #{response2.bucket_status}"
  
  # Example with path-based consumption
  response3 = client.consume_local_bucket_token(
    path: '/api/v1/emails/send',
    http_method: 'POST',
    user_identifier: 'user123'
  )
  
  puts "Path-based call - Success: #{response3.success}"
  puts "Bucket status: #{response3.bucket_status}"
  
  # Proceed with your operations...

rescue LightrateClient::UnauthorizedError => e
  puts "❌ Authentication failed: #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::TooManyRequestsError => e
  puts "⚠️  Rate limited: #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::APIError => e
  puts "❌ API Error (#{e.status_code}): #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::NetworkError => e
  puts "❌ Network error: #{e.message}"
end

Advanced Configuration

# For applications with very high token consumption
client = LightrateClient::Client.new(
  'your_api_key',
  'your_application_id',
  default_local_bucket_size: 500,  # Large default bucket for all operations
  timeout: 60,                      # Longer timeout for large bucket requests
  retry_attempts: 5,                # More retries for reliability
  logger: Logger.new(STDOUT)        # Enable request logging
)

Error Handling

The gem provides comprehensive error handling with specific exception types:

begin
  client.users
rescue LightrateClient::UnauthorizedError => e
  puts "Authentication failed: #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::NotFoundError => e
  puts "Resource not found: #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::APIError => e
  puts "API Error (#{e.status_code}): #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::NetworkError => e
  puts "Network error: #{e.message}"
rescue LightrateClient::TimeoutError => e
  puts "Request timed out: #{e.message}"
end

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/lightbourne-technologies/lightrate-client-ruby. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Lightrate Client Ruby project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.