Limits and policies

Limits are enforced by gate policies and meter pricing, while plans decide who can reach those limits.

This guide focuses on the packaging boundaries developers should model.

Prereqs

• You use authorize then commit: Tutorial: authorize then commit.

What a plan does and does not do

• A plan grants access scope through entitlements.
• A plan can select a gate policy bundle (directly or via purchased prices).
• A plan does not redefine meter unit prices per plan.
• Meter prices stay catalog/meter driven; plans influence behavior by access scope and purchased quantities.

Runtime hints you should honor

Hint type	Meaning	Recommended client behavior
rate.limit	request exceeds a rate window	backoff and retry with jitter, or queue
quota.remaining	quota cannot cover the requested quantity	reduce quantity or split work
budget.shortfall	selected budget cannot cover settlement	prompt top-up or choose a different budget
funding.xusd_shortfall	account funding is insufficient	prompt top-up, degrade, or deny based on policy

Packaging checklist

• Entitlements reflect product access boundaries.
• Gate bundle mapping is deterministic for each account.
• Customer-facing behavior for rate.limit and shortfall hints is defined in product UX.

Next

• Gate bundle mapping: Gate policies and bundles
• Runtime semantics: Gate runtime