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Golf Gateway rate limits MCP traffic using a Redis-backed sliding window. Limits are enforced in layers — per-user, per-server, and system-wide — so you can protect individual upstreams and the gateway as a whole from abuse or runaway clients.

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Prerequisites

  • Golf Gateway deployed and running
  • Redis configured

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How it works

Each request is checked against the limits in order, from most specific to most general:
  1. Per-user — requests per window for a single authenticated user. Anonymous requests fall back to a per-IP limit using the same threshold.
  2. Per-server — requests per window for a single user against a specific MCP server.
  3. Global — system-wide requests per window across all users.
The first limit that is exceeded stops the request. Each layer uses the same sliding-window algorithm over the configured window_seconds.
Rate limiting fails open: if Redis is unavailable, requests are allowed through rather than blocked, so a cache outage never takes down your gateway.

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Configure the per-user limit

The per-user limit is the only limit configurable via environment variables or YAML. Set it with the GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_ variables: 
GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=true
GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS_PER_MINUTE=1000   # per-user limit, range 1-5000
GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS=60          # sliding window, range 10-300
Or in YAML (Distributed mode), under the security section:
golf-gateway.yaml
security:
  rate_limiting:
    enabled: true
    requests_per_minute: 1000
    window_seconds: 60
SettingEnv VariableDefaultRangeDescription
enabledGOLF_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLEDtrue-Enable rate limiting
requests_per_minuteGOLF_RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS_PER_MINUTE10001-5000Per-user (and per-IP fallback) limit
window_secondsGOLF_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS6010-300Sliding window duration

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Global and per-server limits

System-wide (global) and per-server limits are managed through the Control Plane in Centralized mode — they are not configurable via environment variables or YAML. Their defaults are:
LimitDefaultConfigured via
Per-user1000 req/windowEnv var, YAML, or Control Plane
Per-server500 req/windowControl Plane only
Global1000 req/windowControl Plane only
All three limits share the same window_seconds. The window is always read from the environment and is not overridden by Control Plane configuration.