Throttle Step

The throttle step limits how often a recipient can receive notifications from a workflow. If a notification would exceed the throttle limit, it is dropped.

Configuration

Setting	Description
Duration	The throttle window (number)
Unit	The time unit: seconds, minutes, hours, or days
Throttle Key	Optional property to throttle by (e.g., `data.project_id`)

Use Cases

Prevent notification spam

Limit promotional notifications to once per day:

Trigger → Throttle (1 day) → Email → End

If the workflow is run multiple times for the same user within 24 hours, only the first notification is sent.

Rate limit alerts

Prevent alert fatigue by throttling system notifications:

Trigger → Throttle (1 hour) → Push → End

How It Works

When execution reaches a throttle step, it checks if a notification was already allowed through this step within the throttle window
Within the window — the workflow stops and the notification is dropped
Outside the window — execution continues to the next step and a throttle event is recorded for future checks

Throttle Key

Notifications are throttled per recipient by default. Each user has their own throttle gate that operates independently.

You can optionally set a throttle key to throttle by a specific property. For example, setting the throttle key to data.project_id will create separate throttle windows for each project — so a user working on multiple projects can receive one alert per project within the window, rather than one alert total.

User receives alerts for project_A and project_B:

Without throttle key (1 hour window):
  project_A alert → ✓ allowed
  project_B alert → ✗ dropped (same recipient, within window)

With throttle key = data.project_id (1 hour window):
  project_A alert → ✓ allowed
  project_B alert → ✓ allowed (different key, independent window)
  project_A alert → ✗ dropped (same key, within window)

When the throttle key property is missing from the notification data, it falls back to a default group — all notifications without the property are throttled together.

Throttle vs Digest

	Throttle	Digest
Behavior	Drops excess notifications	Combines notifications into one
Data	Only the first notification is sent	All events included in the digest
Use when	You want to limit (e.g., max one alert per hour)	You want to aggregate (e.g., "5 new comments")

Throttle example: User gets one "new follower" push per hour — extras are dropped.

Digest example: User gets one email listing all new followers from the past hour.

See Digest Step for more on digesting.

Combining Steps

You can combine throttle with other control steps:

Trigger → Digest → Throttle (4 hours) → Email → End

This digests events first, then ensures the user doesn't receive more than one digest notification every 4 hours.