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: Perforce
providerId: perforce
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:
  - Rate Limiting
  - Version Control
  - DevOps
notes: Perforce APIs ship inside customer-deployed (or single-tenant cloud) servers. There is no
  public, multi-tenant API gateway with documented per-key rate limits. Throughput is bounded by
  the customer's own server hardware, license type, and any reverse-proxy limits the customer
  configures. The exception is P4 Cloud, where Perforce manages the server but does not publish
  per-key rate limits.
description: Perforce products (Helix Core / P4, Helix Swarm, Helix ALM, P4 DAM, P4 Search, Helix
  TeamHub, Hansoft, Helix Authentication Service) are deployed as customer-managed or hosted
  single-tenant servers. The vendor does not publish numeric API rate limits because throughput is
  bounded by the customer's deployed capacity. P4 Cloud is multi-tenant managed but does not
  publish per-tenant API rate-limit numerics.
sources:
  - https://www.perforce.com/products/helix-core
  - https://www.perforce.com/resources/vcs/helix-core-pricing
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  serviceUnavailable: 503
limits:
  - name: Self-hosted Perforce APIs
    scope: server
    metric: varies
    limit: 'bounded by customer deployment; no vendor-published per-second / per-minute numeric'
    notes: Includes Helix Core P4 REST, Swarm, Helix ALM, TeamHub, Hansoft, P4 Plan, P4 DAM,
      P4 Search, Helix Authentication Service. Throughput depends on hardware sizing and customer
      configuration.
  - name: P4 Cloud APIs
    scope: tenant
    metric: varies
    limit: 'not publicly documented; managed-service fair-use'
    notes: Multi-tenant managed Helix Core. Limits are managed by Perforce ops and not published
      per-key.
policies:
  - name: Customer-Managed Throughput
    description: For self-hosted Perforce products, the deploying organization is responsible for
      sizing servers and any reverse-proxy / load-balancer rate limits.
  - name: Backoff
    description: Standard practice on 429 / 503 is exponential backoff with jitter; honor
      Retry-After if returned by an upstream proxy.
  - name: Long-Running P4 Commands
    description: Some Helix Core operations (sync, p4 print of large files) are long-running rather
      than throttled per-second; size client batch operations accordingly.
  - name: License Concurrency
    description: Per-user license counts cap concurrent named-user sessions rather than per-second
      API throughput.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com
    url: https://apievangelist.com