API Tips
Lichess offers a wide range of API endpoints which can be used for everything from downloading games of a user, to fully automated tournament software that generates and accepts player challenges, streams the games, and reports the results. The full list of endpoints is available at lichess.org/api and is constantly being updated. If you have a use case that is not covered, please do ask us about it and we may consider adding it. We would much rather add an endpoint than have people use web-scraping or browser automation tools!
Rate Limiting
As explained in the API documentation there are two main rules to follow when using the APIs:
- Only make one request at a time
- If you receive an HTTP response with a 429 status, please wait a full minute before resuming API usage
Due to a complex array of separate rate limiting factors that protect us from DDOS attacks, we aren't able to specify for each API exactly what limits you will hit and when, they are varied and ever changing. However, following the above rules should keep you safe from problems.
If you're still having trouble and hitting rate limits, let us know and we'll work with you to resolve the problems.
Other questions
You can reach out to us at the discord in the #lichess-api-support channel for general support and questions on the API, but please do check the documentation first as it is kept up to date and covers all public APIs.