benchmark/system_design.txt

Prompt: Design a distributed rate limiter that works across multiple servers without a central coordinator. Use a sliding window algorithm. Handle clock skew between nodes. Show the implementation.

Generated:
Design a distributed rate limiter that works across multiple servers without a central coordinator. Use a sliding window algorithm. Handle clock skew between nodes. Show the implementation.

<think>
This is an interesting problem about designing a distributed rate limiter. Let me break down the requirements:

1. **Distributed system**: Multiple servers, no central coordinator
2. **Sliding window algorithm**: More accurate than fixed windows for rate limiting
3. **Clock skew handling**: Different servers may have slightly different clocks
4. **Implementation**: Need to show actual code

Key challenges:
- Without a central coordinator, we need consensus or eventual consistency
- Clock skew can cause over/under counting of requests
- Sliding window needs more state tracking than fixed windows

Solutions I'll implement:
1. **Use Redis as shared state store** (common pattern - while it's centralized storage, each node can access it independently)
   - Actually, let me reconsider - if they want truly no central coordinator, I should use gossip protocol or vector clocks
   
2. **Better approach for "no central coordinator"**: Use a combination of: