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: Groundcover
providerId: groundcover
generated: '2026-08-29'
method: searched
source: https://docs.groundcover.com/use-groundcover/remote-access-and-apis/raw-prometheus-and-clickhouse
created: '2026-05-04'
modified: '2026-08-29'
tags:
  - AIOps
  - Observability
  - Rate Limiting
description: >-
  groundcover publishes a single, flat, per-client rate limit for its APIs and applies it
  independently to each API key. It is NOT tiered — the pricing page differentiates plans on
  retention, RBAC and support, not on request rate. What groundcover does not publish is the runtime
  signal: no rate-limit response headers and no exhaustion status code are documented anywhere, so
  a client cannot detect throttling from the response contract. Replaces the 2026-05-04 scaffold,
  which carried invented per-tier request quotas.
scope: per client, where a client is identified by the Authorization header (typically one API key)
limit_count: 2
limits:
  - name: Per-second request rate
    scope: api-key
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 150
    timeFrame: second
    burst: null
    tier: all
    applies:
      - https://api.groundcover.com
    source: https://docs.groundcover.com/use-groundcover/remote-access-and-apis/raw-prometheus-and-clickhouse
  - name: Per-minute request rate
    scope: api-key
    metric: requests_per_minute
    limit: 1000
    timeFrame: minute
    burst: null
    tier: all
    applies:
      - https://api.groundcover.com
    source: https://docs.groundcover.com/use-groundcover/remote-access-and-apis/raw-prometheus-and-clickhouse
headers:
  documented: false
  limit: null
  remaining: null
  reset: null
  retryAfter: null
  policy: null
  note: >-
    No X-RateLimit-*, RateLimit-* or Retry-After header is documented, and none could be observed:
    every unauthenticated request to api.groundcover.com is rejected at the edge with HTTP 400
    before any rate-limit accounting, so headers cannot be probed without a key.
responseCodes:
  throttled: null
  note: >-
    The docs name no status code for exhaustion. 429 is the conventional answer but groundcover does
    not state it, so it is recorded as unknown rather than assumed.
statement: >-
  "groundcover APIs enforce rate limits on a per-client basis to ensure fair usage and system
  stability. Each client is allowed up to 150 requests per second and 1,000 requests per minute. A
  'client' is identified by the Authorization header, which typically represents an API key. This
  means that rate limits are applied independently for each API key used."
other_limits:
  - name: gcQL result bounding
    description: >-
      Not a rate limit but the practical throughput control on the query surface — every gcQL query
      is expected to end with `| limit N`, and on MCP the server warns when a result set hits the
      limit rather than offering pagination.
  - name: Agent Mode cost limits
    description: >-
      Agent Mode spending is capped by organization, default and per-user monthly cost limits, which
      is a spend control rather than a request-rate control.
    docs: https://docs.groundcover.com/use-groundcover/agent-mode/cost-management