Limits & keys
Rate limits, key management, and what "free" actually means.
Rate limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Requests per key | 100 / minute |
| Burst | 10 concurrent |
| Active keys per account | 5 |
There is no per-user monthly cap. freesea runs against a global budget
instead, and degrades honestly when it is under pressure — tightened rate
limits first, and a clear 429 rather than silent truncation or fabricated
results.
Upstream capacity is shared, so a 429 whose message names the search
backend means the shared limit, not yours. Both are safe to retry after
Retry-After.
Keys
- Created from the dashboard. Shown once, at creation — freesea stores only a hash and cannot show it to you again.
- Revoke at any time from the dashboard; revocation is immediate.
- Send as
Authorization: Bearer freesea_sk_…orx-api-key: freesea_sk_…. - Lost a key? Revoke it and create another. There is no recovery path, by design.
Keeping a key safe
Prefer an environment variable (FREESEA_API_KEY) over writing the key into a
file your agent might commit. If you do put it in a config file, check that the
file is gitignored.
A leaked key costs you nothing directly — there is no billing attached — but it consumes the shared budget, so revoke and replace it.