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: Cornell University
providerId: cornell
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-08-19'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Rate Limiting
description: Cornell University does not publish a unified rate-limit table across its surfaces. The one
  documented limit is on the Class Roster API, whose API details page asks clients to stay under one request
  per second. Open metadata and harvesting endpoints (the eCommons OAI-PMH endpoint, the Library catalog
  and CUGIR JSON routes) may throttle large-scale automated harvesting; harvest politely, honor Retry-After,
  and contact the service for bulk access. The eBird API 2.0 (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) gates access
  behind a free token rather than a published rate table.
notes: Confirm per-service limits with each API's documentation; harvest responsibly.
sources:
- https://classes.cornell.edu/content/FA26/api-details
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/cornell/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Class Roster API
  scope: client
  metric: requests-per-second
  limit: 1
  notes: Documented at https://classes.cornell.edu/content/FA26/api-details — "no more than one request
    per second".
  source: https://classes.cornell.edu/content/FA26/api-details
- name: Default
  scope: client
  metric: requests-per-minute
  limit: see service documentation
  notes: No published global limit; large harvests may be rate-limited.
policies:
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Exponential backoff with jitter; honor Retry-After; harvest during off-peak hours.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
generated: '2026-08-19'
method: searched