ok, so inserting something into the Rust code at the API front door

The rate-limit logic is something to trace in the code and understand, as I assume that blocks before getting into SQL?

  /// Returns true if the request passed the rate limit, false if it failed and should be rejected.
  pub fn check(self, ip_addr: IpAddr) -> bool {
    // Does not need to be blocking because the RwLock in settings never held across await points,
    // and the operation here locks only long enough to clone
    let mut guard = self
      .rate_limit
      .lock()
      .expect("Failed to lock rate limit mutex for reading");
    let rate_limit = &guard.rate_limit_config;

    let (kind, interval) = match self.type_ {
      RateLimitType::Message => (rate_limit.message, rate_limit.message_per_second),
      RateLimitType::Post => (rate_limit.post, rate_limit.post_per_second),
      RateLimitType::Register => (rate_limit.register, rate_limit.register_per_second),
      RateLimitType::Image => (rate_limit.image, rate_limit.image_per_second),
      RateLimitType::Comment => (rate_limit.comment, rate_limit.comment_per_second),
      RateLimitType::Search => (rate_limit.search, rate_limit.search_per_second),
    };
    let limiter = &mut guard.rate_limiter;

    limiter.check_rate_limit_full(self.type_, ip_addr, kind, interval, InstantSecs::now())
  }