Rate limits

Rate limits keep the API fast for everyone. Limits apply to each API key, separately for the sandbox and production, and are counted over a rolling 10-second window.

Limits during beta

The draft approval limit is deliberately low. Every approval can send a real email to a vendor, and a runaway loop shouldn’t be able to flood a sales rep’s inbox. If you have a genuine need for higher limits, talk to us.

Headers

Every response includes your current status:

RateLimit-Limit: 100
RateLimit-Remaining: 87
RateLimit-Reset: 6

When you’re limited

Requests over the limit get a 429 response with a rate_limit_error and a Retry-After header in seconds. Wait at least that long before retrying.

async function withRetry(fn, attempts = 5) {
  for (let i = 0; i < attempts; i++) {
    const res = await fn();
    if (res.status !== 429 && res.status < 500) return res;
    const wait = Number(res.headers.get("Retry-After")) * 1000 || 2 ** i * 500;
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, wait + Math.random() * 250));
  }
  throw new Error("Trimline API: retries exhausted");
}

Staying under the limit

• Subscribe to webhooks instead of polling for changes.
• Use limit=100 when you page through large lists.
• Cache vendor and contract data, which change rarely, and refresh it when a contract.updated event arrives.