Treat a limit as a structured fact
“100 requests” is incomplete. A usable record includes:
- quantity and unit;
- time window and reset behavior;
- scope: key, user, project, workspace, organization, IP, endpoint, or model;
- tier, plan, and region;
- burst versus sustained behavior;
- source URL and verification date.
Some systems enforce requests, tokens, concurrent jobs, daily spend, and file storage independently. Hitting any one dimension can reject the call.
Follow a source ladder
Start with an official machine-readable specification if it includes limits. Then check the official API reference, limits guide, pricing page, console-displayed entitlement, and response headers. Use official support or a contract for unresolved production questions.
An old vendor blog post, search snippet, forum answer, or third-party comparison is a discovery lead—not the primary source for a current quota.
Distinguish published defaults from your entitlement
Providers often show standard limits while assigning a different limit to the actual account. Record both:
{
"published": { "value": 25, "unit": "requests/day" },
"observed": { "value": 75, "unit": "requests/minute", "scope": "project" },
"source_url": "https://provider.example/official-limits",
"verified_at": "2026-09-13"
}Never publish private console values as a universal provider fact.
Verify behavior safely
Do not generate abusive traffic to discover a threshold. Read the documentation and account console first. In an authorized test environment, observe normal responses and headers, then test a small controlled burst below the documented cap. Confirm the 429 error shape only when the provider offers a sandbox or the test is safe and permitted.
Design for drift
Keep the limit out of scattered application constants. Centralize throttling configuration, read server headers where reliable, and expose a runtime override. Attach a next-review date to published facts—weekly for fast-moving AI quotas, slower for stable public APIs.
When an official page changes, open a reviewable content change. A hash difference is evidence to inspect, not permission to publish arbitrary extracted text.