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: Workable
providerId: workable
created: '2026-05-08'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-08, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-08'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - HR
  - ATS
  - Recruiting
  - Rate Limiting
  - Throttling
description: >-
  Workable enforces per-token rate limiting on its v3 REST API. The
  documented default is a sliding-window bucket per access token; clients
  receive HTTP 429 with Retry-After when the bucket is exhausted. Dedicated
  read-only public endpoints (job feeds) are not rate-limited the same way.
sources:
  - https://workable.readme.io/
notes: >-
  Production limits vary by partnership tier and customer plan; inspect
  X-Rate-Limit-* response headers for authoritative live values.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
  - name: Per Access Token Default
    scope: token
    metric: requests
    notes: >-
      Sliding-window per-token limit; 429 returned with Retry-After when
      exceeded. Inspect X-Rate-Limit-Limit / X-Rate-Limit-Remaining /
      X-Rate-Limit-Reset response headers.
  - name: Listing Endpoints
    scope: token
    metric: requests
    notes: >-
      List endpoints (e.g. /jobs, /candidates) are paginated and weighted
      higher than single-record retrievals; paginate aggressively.
  - name: Webhook Delivery
    scope: subscription
    metric: events
    notes: >-
      Workable webhooks are delivered with retries on 5xx. Receivers must
      respond 2xx within the platform timeout to avoid retry loops.
policies:
  - name: Backoff Strategy
    description: >-
      Exponential backoff with jitter on 429 and honor any Retry-After
      header. Avoid tight retry loops on listing endpoints.
  - name: Pagination
    description: >-
      Use since_id and limit cursors on candidate / activity endpoints to
      page through historical data without exhausting the rate limit.
  - name: Webhooks-First
    description: >-
      Subscribe to candidate.* and member.* events for change feeds; reduce
      poll frequency on listing endpoints accordingly.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com