Cooldowns are how you make sure that troublemakers don't spam your bot.
Akairo allows you to set cooldowns in uses per milliseconds.

import { Command } from "discord-akairo";
import { Message } from "discord.js";
import exampleAPI from "example-api";

export default class RequestCommand extends Command {
  constructor() {
    super("request", {
      aliases: ["request"],
      cooldown: 10000,
      ratelimit: 2
    });
  }

  async exec(message: Message): Promise<Message> {
    const info = await exampleAPI.fetchInfo();
    return message.reply(info);
  }
}

cooldown is the amount of time a user would be in cooldown for.
ratelimit is the amount of uses a user can do before they are denied usage.

In simple terms, this means 2 uses every 10000 milliseconds.

If you wish to set a default cooldown for all commands, the defaultCooldown option is available:

this.commandHandler = new CommandHandler(this, {
  directory: "./commands/",
  prefix: "?",
  defaultCooldown: 1000
});

When someone uses a command while in cooldown, the event cooldown will be emitted on the command handler with the remaining time in milliseconds.

By default, cooldowns are ignored by the client owners.
This is actually done through the option ignoreCooldown.
To change this, simply pass in an ID or an array of IDs:

this.commandHandler = new CommandHandler(this, {
  directory: "./commands/",
  prefix: "?",
  defaultCooldown: 1000,
  ignoreCooldown: ["123992700587343872", "130175406673231873"]
});

Note that you should pass the owner ID in as well, since it overrides the default.
That is, unless you actually want to be ratelimited yourself.
Also, a function could also be used to check who should be ignored.