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: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
providerId: bureau-of-ocean-energy-management
generated: '2026-09-05'
method: probed
created: '2026-05-04'
modified: '2026-09-05'
source: >-
  live unauthenticated calls against https://gis.boem.gov/server/rest/services and
  https://gis.boem.gov/server/services on 2026-09-05, with full response headers captured;
  plus a search of boem.gov and marinecadastre.gov for any published limits
note: |
  REPLACES A SCAFFOLD. Until this pass this file declared per-tier limits (10 rpm free,
  100 rpm professional, 1,000 rpm enterprise), an X-RateLimit-* header family and a 429
  exhaustion code. None of it was observed and none of it is published — it came from the
  2026-05-04 bulk sweep stamped `method: generated`. It is removed rather than left to be
  read as BOEM's runtime contract.

  THE TRUTH: BOEM documents no rate limits anywhere, and the services emit no rate-limit
  signal. A full header capture on 2026-09-05 returned Cache-Control, ETag, Vary,
  X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, Connection, Keep-Alive and a TS01*
  load-balancer cookie — no X-RateLimit-*, no RateLimit-*, no Retry-After.

  An honest zero is the finding, and it is a real risk to a consumer: with no published limit
  and no runtime signal, an agent has no way to learn it is being throttled except by a request
  failing. The one real ceiling on the surface is not a rate limit at all — it is
  maxRecordCount 10000 per feature query, a PAGE size, reported by every layer and paired with
  `exceededTransferLimit` in the response body.
limit_count: 0
documented: false
headers: {}
responseCodes: {}
limits: []
observed_headers:
  - Cache-Control: max-age=0,must-revalidate
  - ETag
  - Vary: Origin
  - X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
  - Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
transfer_ceilings:
  - surface: ArcGIS REST feature query
    field: maxRecordCount
    value: 10000
    signal: exceededTransferLimit (boolean, in the response body)
    note: >-
      a per-request page size, not a rate limit. Page with resultOffset / resultRecordCount;
      the layer reports advancedQueryCapabilities.supportsPagination true.
policies:
  - name: Conditional GET
    description: >-
      responses carry ETag with must-revalidate. Poll with If-None-Match rather than refetching;
      it is the only cooperative behaviour the surface actually supports.
  - name: Unknown ceiling
    description: >-
      no throttle is documented or signalled. Treat unexplained failures as possible
      server-side load shedding and back off exponentially with jitter, because nothing on the
      wire will tell you otherwise.
evidence:
  - url: https://gis.boem.gov/server/rest/services/BOEM_BSEE/ATL_Layers/MapServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&returnCountOnly=true&f=json
    status: 200
    observation: full header capture 2026-09-05 — no rate-limit header of any family present
  - url: https://gis.boem.gov/server/rest/services/BOEM_BSEE/ATL_Layers/MapServer/0?f=json
    status: 200
    observation: maxRecordCount 10000; supportsPagination true
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com