How to customize Laravel request throttle message in API response?

When you are using laravel api, then you must use throttling to protect your api from scrapping or any other attack. When you are limiting your api using laravel throttle then you get a html response message containing "Too Many Attempts."

In order to change the message in a custom format and json reponse follow the steps below:

Create a new file ThrottleRequestsMiddleware.php in app/Http/Middleware/ and paste the code below:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Cache\RateLimiter;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

class ThrottleRequestsMiddleware
{
    /**
     * The rate limiter instance.
     *
     * @var \Illuminate\Cache\RateLimiter
     */
    protected $limiter;

    /**
     * Create a new request throttler.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Cache\RateLimiter $limiter
     */
    public function __construct(RateLimiter $limiter)
    {
        $this->limiter = $limiter;
    }

    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
     * @param  \Closure $next
     * @param  int $maxAttempts
     * @param  int $decayMinutes
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next, $maxAttempts = 60, $decayMinutes = 1)
    {
        $key = $this->resolveRequestSignature($request);

        if ($this->limiter->tooManyAttempts($key, $maxAttempts, $decayMinutes)) {
            return $this->buildResponse($key, $maxAttempts);
        }

        $this->limiter->hit($key, $decayMinutes);

        $response = $next($request);

        return $this->addHeaders(
            $response, $maxAttempts,
            $this->calculateRemainingAttempts($key, $maxAttempts)
        );
    }

    /**
     * Resolve request signature.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
     * @return string
     */
    protected function resolveRequestSignature($request)
    {
        return $request->fingerprint();
    }

    /**
     * Create a 'too many attempts' response.
     *
     * @param  string $key
     * @param  int $maxAttempts
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    protected function buildResponse($key, $maxAttempts)
    {
        $message = json_encode([
            'error' => [
                'message' => 'Too many attempts, please slow down the request.' //may comes from lang file
            ],
            'status' => 4029 //your custom code
        ]);

        $response = new Response($message, 429);

        $retryAfter = $this->limiter->availableIn($key);

        return $this->addHeaders(
            $response, $maxAttempts,
            $this->calculateRemainingAttempts($key, $maxAttempts, $retryAfter),
            $retryAfter
        );
    }

    /**
     * Add the limit header information to the given response.
     *
     * @param  \Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response $response
     * @param  int $maxAttempts
     * @param  int $remainingAttempts
     * @param  int|null $retryAfter
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    protected function addHeaders(Response $response, $maxAttempts, $remainingAttempts, $retryAfter = null)
    {
        $headers = [
            'X-RateLimit-Limit' => $maxAttempts,
            'X-RateLimit-Remaining' => $remainingAttempts,
        ];

        if (!is_null($retryAfter)) {
            $headers['Retry-After'] = $retryAfter;
            $headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json';
        }

        $response->headers->add($headers);

        return $response;
    }

    /**
     * Calculate the number of remaining attempts.
     *
     * @param  string $key
     * @param  int $maxAttempts
     * @param  int|null $retryAfter
     * @return int
     */
    protected function calculateRemainingAttempts($key, $maxAttempts, $retryAfter = null)
    {
        if (!is_null($retryAfter)) {
            return 0;
        }

        return $this->limiter->retriesLeft($key, $maxAttempts);
    }
}

Then go to your kernel.php file in app/Http/ directory and replace

'throttle' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ThrottleRequests::class,

with

'throttle' => \App\Middleware\ThrottleRequestsMiddleware::class,

Note: You an extend the base ThrottleRequests class and override the responsible methods, but I am lazy to do that rather I like to copy-paste.

Hope this will work fine :)