FedMCP - Federal Parliamentary Information

# API Rate Limiting Summary This document summarizes the rate limiting and best practices implemented for each data source used by FedMCP. ## Implemented Rate Limits ### CanLII (Canadian Legal Information Institute) **Official Limits:** - 5,000 queries per day - 2 requests per second - 1 concurrent request **Our Implementation:** - ✅ Enforces 2 requests/second limit (0.5 second minimum interval between requests) - ✅ Synchronous execution ensures 1 concurrent request - ✅ Exponential backoff retry for 429/5xx errors - ✅ API key required (configured in .env) ### OpenParliament API **Official Guidance:** - No specific rate limits published - Returns HTTP 429 "Too Many Requests" if limits exceeded - Recommends User-Agent header with email - Requires API-Version header (v1) **Our Implementation:** - ✅ Conservative rate limiting: 10 requests/second (0.1 second minimum interval) - ✅ User-Agent includes email: "Connexxia-Agent (matt@thoughtforge.com)" - ✅ API-Version header set to "v1" - ✅ Exponential backoff retry for 429/5xx errors ### LEGISinfo (Parliament of Canada) **Type:** Static data export service (JSON/XML files) **Our Implementation:** - ℹ️ No rate limiting needed - serves static files - ✅ Standard retry logic for network errors ### House of Commons Hansard (OurCommons) **Type:** Static document service (XML via DocumentViewer) **Our Implementation:** - ℹ️ No rate limiting needed - serves static XML documents - ✅ Standard retry logic for network errors ## Rate Limiting Architecture All rate limiting is implemented in `RateLimitedSession` (src/fedmcp/http.py): ### Proactive Rate Limiting - Enforces minimum time between requests via `min_request_interval` parameter - Automatically delays requests if they come too quickly - Prevents hitting rate limits before they occur ### Reactive Retry Logic - Detects 429 (rate limit) and 5xx (server error) responses - Implements exponential backoff: sleeps for `backoff_factor * 2^(attempt-1)` seconds - Maximum retry attempts configurable (default: 5) ## Best Practices Followed 1. **User-Agent Headers**: All clients identify themselves with contact information 2. **API Versioning**: OpenParliament requests specify API version for compatibility 3. **Conservative Limits**: We use more conservative limits than required to be respectful 4. **Graceful Degradation**: Automatic retry with exponential backoff for transient failures 5. **Documentation**: Clear documentation of limits for future maintainers ## Attribution As recommended by OpenParliament, when using this data in applications: - Provide attribution by linking back to openparliament.ca - Acknowledge that parliamentary content is Crown copyright - Note that CanFedInfo/FedMCP code is MIT licensed but data sources have their own terms ## Contact Information If experiencing issues with API access: - OpenParliament: Contact via their mailing list or GitHub issues - CanLII: Contact via feedback form at https://www.canlii.org/en/feedback/feedback.html - LEGISinfo/OurCommons: Contact via Parliament of Canada info@parl.gc.ca