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Cooldowns

If your commands perform costly operations or can potentially be abused, you may want to set a limit on the number of times the command can be used. The Cooldown API will allow you to deal with these situations without hassle.

Set a cooldown to a command​

Override the cooldown() method from InteractionListener, and specify the cooldown using Cooldown.of(int, Duration):

@Override
public Cooldown cooldown() {
    return Cooldown.of(1, Duration.ofMinutes(1));
}

The integer represents the maximum number of times the command can be executed within a timeframe, and the duration represents the timeframe itself. Therefore, this example corresponds to a cooldown of once per minute.

info

Cooldowns are applied per user. Two different users using the same command will always have their own separate usage limits.

Handling cooldowns​

When a user reaches the maximum number of permits and attempts to use the command again, the command will fail with a CooldownException. You can handle this exception via the command error handler, which will be covered in the next section.