# Provenance stamped 2026-10-07 (roadmap#943): written by an API Evangelist sweep (undated — the file carries no date and git cannot supply one), not
# harvested from the provider. `method: generated` so the economics campaign may replace it with a
# dated, verbatim transcription; every figure below is unverified until it does.
method: generated
rateLimits:
  - name: API Call Frequency
    description: >
      STRING recommends waiting at least 1 second between consecutive API
      calls to avoid overloading the server. This is a soft recommendation
      rather than a hard enforced limit, but repeated rapid requests may
      result in server-side throttling or blocking.
    url: https://string-db.org/cgi/access?footer_active_subpage=usage
    period: second
    limit: 1
    unit: requests
    enforcement: recommended
    notes: >
      The STRING API documentation explicitly states users should "wait 1
      second between API calls to avoid overloading the server." Scripts
      should NOT run in parallel against the STRING API.
  - name: Parallel Requests
    description: >
      Parallel script execution against the STRING API is explicitly
      discouraged. Users should run requests sequentially.
    url: https://string-db.org/cgi/access?footer_active_subpage=usage
    enforcement: discouraged
    notes: >
      For large-scale data needs, download the full dataset from the STRING
      Download page instead of making bulk API requests.
  - name: Values/Ranks Concurrent Jobs
    description: >
      The Values/Ranks Enrichment async API accepts up to 1000 concurrent
      jobs per API key. There is no lifetime limit on the number of jobs.
    url: https://string-db.org/help/api/
    limit: 1000
    unit: concurrent jobs
    enforcement: hard
    scope: per API key
  - name: URL Length (GET Requests)
    description: >
      GET requests are subject to standard URL length limitations. For
      queries with many protein identifiers, POST requests are strongly
      recommended to avoid URL length truncation.
    url: https://string-db.org/help/api/
    enforcement: hard
    notes: >
      Use POST method with identifiers separated by newline characters
      (\r or \n) for queries with multiple proteins or long identifier lists.