Limits & Rate Limits

Every operation in alice has defined limits to ensure fair usage across all workspaces and maintain system performance. This page documents every limit, how they are enforced, and what happens when you reach them.

Query Quotas

Query quotas control how many skill executions your workspace can perform per billing month. Every skill run counts as one query, regardless of the source type, query complexity, or whether it is a combined query.

What Counts as a Query

Each of these operations counts as one query:

• Running a skill from Slack (/alice skill-name)
• Running a skill from the dashboard test panel
• A scheduled report executing automatically
• A monitor executing its check

What Does Not Count

• Viewing the dashboard or settings
• Creating or editing skills (no query executed)
• Running /alice help or /alice list
• Action button clicks (actions are separate from queries)
• AI skill generation requests

Hard vs Soft Enforcement

Hard limits (Free plan): When the 50-query limit is reached:

1. Additional slash commands return: "Monthly query limit reached. Upgrade to Pro for 2,000 queries/month."
2. Scheduled reports that attempt to run are skipped with a logged error
3. Monitors that attempt to check are skipped
4. The counter resets on the first day of the next billing cycle

Soft limits (Pro and Business): When the quota is reached or exceeded:

1. A warning banner appears in the dashboard showing over-quota status
2. Queries continue to execute without interruption
3. Usage is tracked and visible in Billing > Usage
4. No slash commands, scheduled reports, or monitors are blocked

Monitoring Your Usage

Track your query consumption in Dashboard > Settings > Billing. The usage bar shows:

• Current queries this period
• Daily average
• Projected total by end of billing cycle

Resource Limits

Beyond query quotas, each plan has limits on the number of resources you can create:

Resource limits are hard limits on all plans. You cannot create a 4th source on the Pro plan, for example. The dashboard displays a message indicating the limit and suggesting an upgrade.

Feature Availability

Some features are only available on certain plans:

Attempting to use an unavailable feature shows a message with the plan required and a link to upgrade.

API Rate Limits

API endpoints are rate-limited per organization to prevent abuse and ensure system stability. Rate limits use a sliding window and are tracked per organization.

Rate Limit Table

When You Hit a Rate Limit

When a rate limit is exceeded, the API returns an HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) response with headers indicating:

• X-RateLimit-Limit -- The maximum number of requests allowed in the window
• X-RateLimit-Remaining -- How many requests remain
• X-RateLimit-Reset -- When the window resets (Unix timestamp)

In Slack, a rate-limited skill execution returns an ephemeral message:

Rate limit exceeded. You can run 30 skills per hour.
Try again in a few minutes.

Rate Limits vs Query Quotas

Rate limits and query quotas are separate systems:

You can hit a rate limit without being near your monthly query quota, and vice versa.

Data Retention

Execution history (audit logs) is automatically cleaned up based on your plan:

Cleanup Schedule

A daily automated cleanup process runs via cron:

• Time: Daily at midnight UTC
• Process: Deletes all skill_runs and action_runs older than the plan's retention period
• Also cleans: Expired team invites (where expires_at < now() and not accepted)

Retention After Downgrade

When you downgrade from a higher plan to a lower one, the new (shorter) retention period applies starting at the next cleanup cycle. Logs older than the new retention period will be deleted within 24 hours of the downgrade taking effect.

Permanent Data

These are never affected by retention:

• Skill definitions and configurations
• Source connections
• Workspace and member records
• Billing and subscription data

Content Limits

Input validation enforces maximum lengths on content submitted through the API:

Exceeding these limits returns a validation error with details about which field exceeded its maximum.

Next Steps

• Plans & Pricing -- Full plan comparison
• Billing Settings -- View your usage and upgrade
• Security -- Audit log retention details
• Slash Commands -- Where queries are consumed
• FAQ -- Common questions about limits