microsoft/graphrag · error · ValueError

period_in_seconds must be a positive integer for Sliding Win

Error message

period_in_seconds must be a positive integer for Sliding Window rate limit.

What it means

RateLimitConfig validation requires period_in_seconds to be positive when using the Sliding Window rate limiter. Zero or negative periods are meaningless for a time window and are rejected at config load.

Source

Thrown at packages/graphrag-llm/graphrag_llm/config/rate_limit_config.py:41

        default=None,
        description="The period in seconds for the rate limit window. (default: 60).",
    )

    requests_per_period: int | None = Field(
        default=None,
        description="The maximum number of requests allowed per period. (default: None, no limit).",
    )

    tokens_per_period: int | None = Field(
        default=None,
        description="The maximum number of tokens allowed per period. (default: None, no limit).",
    )

    def _validate_sliding_window_config(self) -> None:
        """Validate Sliding Window rate limit configuration."""
        if self.period_in_seconds is not None and self.period_in_seconds <= 0:
            msg = "period_in_seconds must be a positive integer for Sliding Window rate limit."
            raise ValueError(msg)

        if not self.requests_per_period and not self.tokens_per_period:
            msg = "At least one of requests_per_period or tokens_per_period must be specified for Sliding Window rate limit."
            raise ValueError(msg)

        if self.requests_per_period is not None and self.requests_per_period <= 0:
            msg = "requests_per_period must be a positive integer for Sliding Window rate limit."
            raise ValueError(msg)

        if self.tokens_per_period is not None and self.tokens_per_period <= 0:
            msg = "tokens_per_period must be a positive integer for Sliding Window rate limit."
            raise ValueError(msg)

    @model_validator(mode="after")
    def _validate_model(self):
        """Validate the rate limit configuration based on its type."""
        if self.type == RateLimitType.SlidingWindow:
            self._validate_sliding_window_config()

View on GitHub (pinned to f40e9a26ce)

Solutions

Set period_in_seconds to a positive integer (e.g. 60)
If the period is computed, guard that the source value is >= 1 before building the config

Example fix

# before
RateLimitConfig(type="sliding_window", requests_per_period=10, period_in_seconds=0)
# after
RateLimitConfig(type="sliding_window", requests_per_period=10, period_in_seconds=60)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

period = cfg["rate_limit"].get("period_in_seconds")
if period is not None and period <= 0:
    raise ValueError("period_in_seconds must be > 0")

Prevention

Validate numeric config ranges in a settings-loading helper before Pydantic sees them
Use positive literals in committed settings.yaml examples

When it happens

Trigger: RateLimitConfig(type=RateLimitType.SlidingWindow, period_in_seconds=0) or a negative value in settings.yaml under rate_limit.

Common situations: Typo such as 0 or -1; computed period from another variable that evaluates to 0; copy-pasted example with a placeholder value.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of microsoft/graphrag@f40e9a26ce (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7e082b427953975e. Report an issue: GitHub.