Exchange API ban prevention checklist + backoff defaults

What you get (2 files):

✅ api-key-permissions-checklist.md: Pre-deployment checklist

• Key setup: which permissions do you actually need?
• Concurrency limits: how many parallel requests are safe?
• Retry strategy: when to retry, when to give up
• Kill switch: can you stop the bot instantly if it misbehaves?
• Rate limit detection: how to recognize backpressure early

📋 retry-backoff-safe-defaults.md: Tested backoff defaults

• Fixed-window backoff strategy with safe defaults
• Exponential backoff formula (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s capped at 30s)
• Jitter ranges per exchange (Binance vs Kraken vs Coinbase)
• Concurrent request limits (when scale-out triggers bans)
• Websocket resync safeguards

Quick reference (what looks like abuse):

❌ Retrying auth failures (looks like brute force)
❌ Scaling to 5 instances without new API keys (looks like DDoS)
❌ Unbounded retries on 429 (looks like automation attack)
❌ No concurrency limits (looks like botnet)
❌ No kill switch (looks like rogue malware)

✓ Each instance has isolated API key
✓ 429 -> immediately reduce concurrency
✓ 401/403 -> stop and investigate (never retry)
✓ Exponential backoff with jitter (proves human-like behavior)
✓ Kill switch: can halt in seconds

What this prevents:

✓ Rate limit bans (most common cause of "mysterious" blocks)
✓ IP blacklisting (affects all bots on your server)
✓ Account suspension (exchanges may escalate repeated abuse)
✓ Cascading failures (one bot's retry storm doesn't block others)
✓ False positives (looks like abuse when it's just poorly-written automation)

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