# Service and runbook limits

> Understand project capacity, concurrent creates, and CATALOG_LIMIT responses.

Canonical page: https://anectico.com/docs/respond/catalog-limits/


Each project's [response catalog](/docs/respond/incidents-and-on-call#set-up-the-response-catalog)
has two independent limits:

| Entry type | Maximum live entries per project |
| --- | --- |
| Services | 500 |
| Runbooks | 500 |

A service does not consume a runbook slot, and another project has its own limits.
Deleted entries do not count toward the live-entry limits. Older revisions of a runbook are
not additional live runbooks.

## Creating entries concurrently

The limits apply to concurrent requests as well as sequential ones. With 499 live runbooks and
no other changes, eight valid requests to create runbooks with distinct unused keys can create
only one additional runbook. The remaining requests are refused with HTTP `429` and a message
beginning with `CATALOG_LIMIT`. The same rule applies independently to services.

A capacity refusal does not create an entry or reserve its key. Capacity depends on live entries,
so waiting or sending more requests in parallel does not create additional capacity. Ask your
agent to remove an unused live entry, wait for that deletion to complete, then retry the refused
request. Over MCP the removal is `delete_response_service` or `delete_runbook`; in the CLI it is
`anectico service-catalog delete` or `anectico runbooks delete`. Read the current entries first with
`list_response_services` and `list_runbooks` (CLI: `anectico service-catalog list` and
`anectico runbooks list`).
A runbook used as a live service's default cannot be deleted until you remove that reference.

## Pending service creation

A service awaiting confirmation of its alert binding already occupies a live-service slot.
Retrying the identical pending creation can complete that existing service even when the project
is at capacity; it does not create a second service or use another slot. A different new service
still needs free capacity.

Changes to existing entries do not require an additional catalog slot. Use the current revision
when editing or deleting an entry, as described in the
[incident and on-call guide](/docs/respond/incidents-and-on-call).