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: Apple Music
providerId: apple-music
created: '2026-05-08'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-08, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-08'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Music
- Streaming
- Apple
- MusicKit
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  Apple Music API enforces rate limits but Apple does not publish exact thresholds. Limits are applied per developer token (team) and per Music User Token. The API returns HTTP 429 Too Many Requests when limits are exceeded; clients should back off and retry.
notes: Apple does not publish per-second/per-minute quotas. Plan for adaptive backoff and caching of catalog responses.
sources:
- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi
- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi/handling_requests_and_responses
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Per developer token
  scope: application
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Apple does not publish exact thresholds; bursty traffic may be throttled.
- name: Per Music User Token
  scope: user
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: User-library calls are also subject to per-user limits.
policies:
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: On 429, honor any Retry-After hint and apply exponential backoff with jitter.
- name: Catalog Caching
  description: Cache catalog responses (songs, albums, artists) to minimize repeat traffic; respect Apple Music caching guidelines.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com