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: McDonald's
providerId: mcdonalds
created: '2026-05-04'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-04, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-05'
reconciled: false
tags:
  - Delivery
  - Fast Food
  - Ordering
  - Restaurants
  - Rate Limiting
description: McDonald's does not publish API rate limits because there is no public developer surface.
  Any rate or concurrency limits live inside the partner integration agreement (delivery marketplace,
  POS vendor, loyalty integration) and are not externally documented.
notes: |
  No public rate-limit documentation. Limits are bilateral and contract-scoped.
sources:
  - https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  serviceUnavailable: 503
limits:
  - name: Partner-scoped limit
    scope: partner-contract
    metric: varies
    limit: 'partner-specific; not publicly documented'
    applies:
      - McDonald's API
    notes: Rate limits are configured per partner contract (e.g. delivery marketplaces, POS vendors,
      loyalty integrators) and visible to that partner's integration team.
policies:
  - name: Backoff Strategy
    description: Use exponential backoff with jitter on transient errors and honor Retry-After when
      present.
  - name: Idempotency
    description: Use unique order / external transaction IDs on order creation and modification so retries
      after timeout do not produce duplicate orders.
  - name: Partner-Scoped Limits
    description: Throughput, burst, and webhook delivery obligations are negotiated per partner and
      documented in the partner integration agreement.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com