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: Cloudability
providerId: cloudability
created: '2026-05-04'
generated: '2026-09-05'
modified: '2026-09-05'
method: searched
source: >-
  IBM Cloudability v3 API documentation on www.ibm.com/docs, the
  github.com/IBM/Apptio-Tools README, and a live unauthenticated response from
  https://api.cloudability.com/v3 — all 2026-09-05.
tags:
  - Cloud Cost Management
  - FinOps
  - Rate Limiting
  - Throttling
description: >-
  Cloudability throttles its API but publishes no limits. IBM's own tooling
  concedes throttling exists — the Apptio-Tools scripts ship a `-delay`
  parameter for exactly this reason — yet no number, window, scope, response
  code or response header is documented anywhere in the v3 API reference, and no
  rate-limit header appears on live responses.
limit_count: 0
documented: false
limits: []
headers:
  limit: null
  remaining: null
  reset: null
  retryAfter: null
  policy: null
  observed: []
  note: >-
    No X-RateLimit-*, RateLimit-* or Retry-After header was present on the live
    401 from https://api.cloudability.com/v3 (2026-09-05). The response carried
    only correlation headers: x-cldy-req-id, x-cldy-trace-id and
    x-tron-sidecar-request-id. An authenticated 2xx could in principle carry
    rate-limit headers, but that cannot be observed without customer credentials.
responseCodes:
  throttled: null
  note: >-
    IBM documents no 429 behaviour for the Cloudability v3 API. The status code
    returned on exhaustion is NOT asserted here.
evidence:
  - claim: Throttling exists
    source: https://github.com/IBM/Apptio-Tools
    quote: >-
      "for large numbers of accounts, you may hit rate limits - use the -delay
      parameter"
    note: First-party acknowledgement, from IBM's own example scripts.
  - claim: No published limits
    source: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloudability-commercial/cloudability-premium/saas?topic=api-getting-started-cloudability-v3
    note: >-
      The getting-started page covers auth, pagination, sorting and filtering and
      says nothing about rate limits. Per-endpoint pages reviewed (users, anomaly
      detection, FOCUS ingress) document no limits either.
  - claim: Unrelated limits exist on a different host
    source: https://api.apptio.com/
    observed: 'x-ratelimit-limit: 400, 400;w=1 (2026-09-05)'
    note: >-
      Recorded so it is not later mistaken for a Cloudability API limit. These
      headers come from the Apptio Frontdoor login gate at frontdoor.apptio.com,
      not from api.cloudability.com, and they govern sign-in traffic.
supersedes: >-
  This file previously contained a bulk-sweep scaffold dated 2026-05-04 asserting
  a free tier of 10 requests/minute with a burst of 20 and a full set of
  X-RateLimit-* response headers. Cloudability publishes none of that. It has
  been removed and replaced with the measured absence above (method upgraded
  generated -> searched).