Hacking OpenClaw: Bypassing Gemini Embedding Rate Limit with Preemptive Throttling
The Problem I was trying to index 57 markdown files into OpenClaw’s memory search using Gemini’s embedding API (gemini-embedding-001). The process kept failing with this error: 429 Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/embed_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 100, model: gemini-embedding-1.0 Please retry in 50.27657655s. Gemini’s free tier has a 100 requests per minute rate limit. With 57 files generating 205 chunks, I was hitting this ceiling almost immediately. The default retry logic in OpenClaw uses exponential backoff (500ms → 1000ms → 2000ms…), but this is reactive — it only kicks in after hitting the rate limit. ...