> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.oviond.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Rate limits & retries

> Oviond rate-limits programmatic API and MCP traffic per account. Learn the limits, the X-RateLimit headers, the 429 response, and how to retry safely.

Oviond rate-limits **programmatic** traffic to protect the platform. This applies to:

* **REST API** calls authenticated with an [API key](/authentication), and
* **[MCP](/mcp/overview)** agent calls.

The Oviond web app (which signs in with a session token) is **never** rate-limited — so your own dashboards and the product UI are unaffected.

## The limits

* **Per account, per surface.** Your REST API budget and your MCP budget are counted **separately** — heavy agent traffic can't starve your direct API usage, and vice-versa.
* **Per minute.** Limits are enforced in a fixed 60-second window.
* **Default: 300 requests per minute** per account for each surface. Your account's actual ceiling is always returned in the `X-RateLimit-Limit` header — read it rather than hard-coding a number.

## Rate-limit headers

Every programmatic response carries your current budget:

| Header                  | Meaning                                     |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| `X-RateLimit-Limit`     | Requests allowed in the window.             |
| `X-RateLimit-Remaining` | Requests left in the current window.        |
| `X-RateLimit-Reset`     | Unix time (seconds) when the window resets. |

## When you're limited

Exceeding the budget returns `429 Too Many Requests` in the standard [error envelope](/api/concepts/errors), with a `Retry-After` header (seconds to wait):

```json theme={null}
{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Please retry after some time.",
    "status_code": 429
  },
  "meta": { "request_id": "req_a1b2c3" }
}
```

## Retrying safely

* **Honor `Retry-After`.** On a `429`, wait the number of seconds it specifies before retrying.
* **Back off exponentially** on repeated `429` or `5xx` responses (for example 1s, 2s, 4s, with jitter).
* **`GET` requests are always safe to retry** — they don't change state.
* **Writes are not idempotent.** Oviond does not support idempotency keys, so a `POST`/`PUT`/`DELETE` that timed out may or may not have applied. Before blindly retrying a write, re-fetch the resource (or list) to check whether the first attempt succeeded, to avoid creating duplicates.
* **Stay under the limit proactively** by watching `X-RateLimit-Remaining` and pacing bulk jobs, rather than sprinting into a `429`.