Limits and defaults

This page is the numbers. For what BasaltDB will not catch, see What BasaltDB won’t catch.

Rows per action

Rows are counted per action, cascaded rows included. The guard counts them inside your Postgres, so a direct connection with the agent’s credential meets the same limits.

Rows in one action	What happens
1 to 10, insert or update	Goes through. Saved, can be undone.
11 to 50, insert or update	Held until you approve it.
Any DELETE of up to 50 rows	Held until you approve it.
More than 50	Refused with ROW_LIMIT_EXCEEDED.
A split write after you said yes	Batches of up to 50 rows, each one held.

The limits do not apply to an undo. An undo restores old values and you approve it. See Rules.

Reads and time

What	Default	Range or note
Rows a query returns	1,000	limits.readRowLimit in engine.json, 1 to 100,000. Over it is QUERY_TIMEOUT with the reason ROW_LIMIT.
Time for a read (query)	5 seconds	limits.statementTimeoutMs in engine.json, 1 millisecond to 10 minutes. Over it is QUERY_TIMEOUT with TIME_LIMIT.
The agent role’s statement timeout	30 seconds	--statement-timeout on basalt init. Postgres enforces it on every statement that role runs, including a preview_revert. A read stops at the lower of the two.
Preparing an undo from request_revert	100 seconds	Over it is QUERY_TIMEOUT with TIME_LIMIT. Run basalt revert ... --open yourself instead.
Preparing an undo from basalt revert	up to 10 minutes	The person’s CLI is not held to the agent’s 100 seconds.
Parameters in one call	1,000	The params array of query and write.
SQL in one call	16,384 characters	One statement.

Agents never set limits. Change them in engine.json or with basalt init. See Configuration.

Approvals

What	Number
A hold lasts	24 hours. No answer means blocked (APPROVAL_EXPIRED).
The agent’s wait for you on one call	90 seconds when it repeats the write with approvalId. 0 on a new write. You can set 0 to 110.
Longest wait	110 seconds. It keeps the call in the agent’s foreground.
Approval code length	At most 8,192 characters.
Waits per turn	One. A review can take longer than any wait, and an agent’s turn cannot be woken when you approve.

Undo

What	Number
Time to approve a prepared undo	1 hour. After that, REVERT_EXPIRED.
An undo applied in one step	Up to 1,000 lines.
A larger undo	A plan you sign once. The agent then applies it in batches.
Lines per batch	1 to 200. apply_revert_batch takes at most 200 line numbers.
Time to finish a signed plan	24 hours after the signature (applyBy).
The agent’s wait for your signature	90 seconds by default, 0 to 110. One wait per turn.
Filters on a preview or request	At most 20 runs and at most 20 tables. Over that is INVALID_ARGUMENT with SCOPE_FILTER_CAP.
Intent of an undo	1 to 500 characters.

Keeping records

What	How long
Old and new values of a change	30 days. After that a row cannot be restored and is skipped as VALUES_PRUNED.
The rest of the ledger	1 year.
Heartbeat from the engine	Every hour. basalt log warns after 7 days of silence.
Passkey unused	basalt log warns after 90 days, counted from registration if never used.
Active passkeys listed	At most 100.

See Change record.

Lists and text

What	Number
Items per page of a list	50 by default, at most 200. Lists use cursor, not offsets.
Intent of a run or a write	At most 500 characters.
One next step’s text	At most 200 characters.
A personMessage	At most 500 characters, not counting its links.
Longest long link handed to an agent	1,800 characters (linkBudget).

Setup from your laptop

What	Number
A setup code is valid	24 hours, and works once.
Clock skew allowed	5 minutes. A code that claims a time further ahead is refused.
Setup code length	At most 1,500 characters. Name fewer tables if it is longer.
Password of the agent	256 bits, made on the engine’s machine. It never leaves it.
Agent role name	At most 63 bytes, <prefix>_agent_<name>.

Column classes

What	Number
Sample per column when you classify	Up to 1,000 non-null values, read with your admin connection and dropped after scoring.
Dictionary memory	512 MB by default (pii.maxMemoryMB).
Dictionary scan	20,000 rows per second by default (pii.scanRowsPerSecond).

The person socket

What	Number
One request	At most 256 KiB, complete within 10 seconds of the greeting.
Connections at once	16. The next one waits.
A page’s request body	At most 16 KiB.