specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Alation
providerId: alation
created: '2026-05-04'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-04, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-05'
reconciled: false
tags:
  - Data Catalog
  - Data Governance
  - Data Intelligence
  - Data Lineage
  - Data Quality
  - Business Glossary
  - Metadata Management
  - Rate Limiting
description: Alation operates as a single-tenant SaaS or on-prem deployment; rate limits are tied to the
  capacity of the customer's tenant rather than a published per-tier policy. Alation's public developer
  documentation does not publish per-second/per-minute API throughput numbers. Behavior is governed by
  authentication tokens (refresh + access tokens) and tenant resource limits.
sources:
  - https://developer.alation.com/dev/reference/
notes: Public docs do not publish concrete TPS/RPM numbers. Alation tenants enforce capacity-based throttling;
  contact Alation support for tenant-specific guidance.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  unauthorized: 401
limits:
  - name: Tenant Capacity
    scope: tenant
    metric: varies
    limit: dimensioned by tenant size and deployment topology - not publicly documented
  - name: Per-Token Concurrency
    scope: token
    metric: concurrent_requests
    limit: tenant-specific - rotate access tokens via the refresh-token flow as documented in the developer
      portal
policies:
  - name: Token Lifecycle
    description: Use refresh tokens to mint short-lived access tokens. SSO-backed tenants must create refresh
      tokens via the Alation UI rather than the API.
  - name: Backoff Strategy
    description: Implement exponential backoff with jitter on 429 responses; honor Retry-After if returned.
  - name: Capacity Planning
    description: For sustained high-volume metadata sync, work with Alation's customer success team to
      right-size the tenant.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com