Configure Rate Limiting

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.

Prerequisites

Golf Gateway deployed and running
Redis configured

How it works

Each request is checked against the limits in order, from most specific to most general:

Per-user — requests per window for a single authenticated user. Anonymous requests fall back to a per-IP limit using the same threshold.
Per-server — requests per window for a single user against a specific MCP server.
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.

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

Setting	Env Variable	Default	Range	Description
`enabled`	`GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED`	`true`	-	Enable rate limiting
`requests_per_minute`	`GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS_PER_MINUTE`	`1000`	1-5000	Per-user (and per-IP fallback) limit
`window_seconds`	`GOLF_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS`	`60`	10-300	Sliding window duration

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:

Limit	Default	Configured via
Per-user	`1000` req/window	Env var, YAML, or Control Plane
Per-server	`500` req/window	Control Plane only
Global	`1000` req/window	Control 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.

Set Up Metrics and Monitoring - Monitor gateway health
Set Up Alerting - Alert on anomalies
Environment Variables - Full configuration reference
YAML Config Schema - Distributed mode configuration

Overview

Guides

Reference

Support

Prerequisites

How it works

Configure the per-user limit

Global and per-server limits

​Prerequisites

​How it works

​Configure the per-user limit

​Global and per-server limits

​Related guides

Prerequisites

How it works

Configure the per-user limit

Global and per-server limits

Related guides