Rate Limits & Best Practices

Rate limits and best practices for using the BlueGamma API efficiently.

This guide covers rate limits, caching strategies, and best practices for integrating with the BlueGamma API.

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Rate Limits

BlueGamma applies rate limits to ensure fair usage and service reliability.

Limit	Value
Requests per second	20
Burst allowance	50 requests

The burst allowance lets you make up to 50 requests in a short burst before rate limiting kicks in. After that, requests are throttled to 20 per second.

If you exceed these limits, you'll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response.

Need higher limits? Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your requirements.

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Best Practices

1. Cache Responses

Curve data doesn't change every second. Cache responses to reduce API calls:

from functools import lru_cache
from datetime import datetime

@lru_cache(maxsize=100)
def get_swap_rate(index: str, tenor: str, date: str = None):
    # Cache key includes date to refresh daily
    date = date or datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
    response = requests.get(
        "https://api.bluegamma.io/v1/swap_rate",
        params={"index": index, "tenor": tenor},
        headers={"x-api-key": API_KEY}
    )
    return response.json()

Recommended cache durations:

Data Type	Cache Duration
Swap rates	1-5 minutes
Forward curves	1-5 minutes
Historical data	24 hours or longer
Government yields (US)	1-5 minutes
Government yields (other)	24 hours (updated daily)

2. Batch Your Requests

Instead of making separate calls for each tenor, use curve endpoints that return multiple data points:

❌ Inefficient — 8 separate calls:

tenors = ["1Y", "2Y", "3Y", "5Y", "7Y", "10Y", "20Y", "30Y"]
for tenor in tenors:
    get_swap_rate("SOFR", tenor)  # 8 API calls

✅ Efficient — 1 call:

get_swap_curve("SOFR")  # Returns all tenors in one call

3. Use Appropriate Endpoints

If you need...	Use this endpoint
Single swap rate	/swap_rate
Full swap curve	/get_swap_curve
Single forward rate	/forward_rate
Full forward curve	/forward_curve
Single discount factor	/discount_factor
Full discount curve	/discount_curve

4. Handle Errors Gracefully

Implement retry logic with exponential backoff:

import time
import requests

def api_request_with_retry(url, params, max_retries=3):
    headers = {"x-api-key": API_KEY}
    
    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers)
        
        if response.status_code == 200:
            return response.json()
        
        if response.status_code == 429:
            # Rate limited — wait and retry
            wait_time = 2 ** attempt  # 1s, 2s, 4s
            print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {wait_time}s...")
            time.sleep(wait_time)
            continue
        
        if response.status_code >= 500:
            # Server error — retry
            time.sleep(1)
            continue
        
        # Client error — don't retry
        response.raise_for_status()
    
    raise Exception("Max retries exceeded")

5. Use Valuation Time for Consistency

When building a model that requires multiple data points, use the same valuation_time parameter across all requests to ensure consistency:

valuation_time = "2024-12-15T16:00:00"

swap_rate = get_swap_rate("SOFR", "5Y", valuation_time=valuation_time)
discount_factor = get_discount_factor("SOFR", "5Y", valuation_time=valuation_time)
gov_yield = get_gov_yield("US", "5Y", valuation_time=valuation_time)

This ensures all data points are from the same market snapshot.

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake	Solution
Calling API in a tight loop	Batch requests or add delays
Not caching historical data	Cache historical queries — they won't change
Fetching full curves when you need 1 point	Use single-point endpoints for one-off queries
Not handling 429 responses	Implement retry logic with backoff

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Need Higher Limits?

If your use case requires higher rate limits, we can discuss custom arrangements:

• Email: [email protected]

• Book a call: Schedule here