5.2.2 Administration — Tenant Management — Limits & Quotas — Usage Enforcement

Limits and Quotas define hard and soft boundaries on resource consumption within a tenant. They ensure fair usage, protect system stability, and provide predictable capacity planning while allowing administrators to monitor and adjust consumption patterns.

Quota Model

Quotas are defined per resource type and evaluated continuously. Each quota has a clear unit of measurement and enforcement behavior.

Common quota types:

Storage capacity

API request volume

AI usage units

Active user counts

Quotas are deterministic and not advisory by default.

Enforcement Strategy

Quota enforcement occurs at execution time. Operations that would exceed a quota are rejected or constrained according to policy.

Enforcement behaviors:

Hard stop with error response

Grace thresholds with warnings

Temporary throttling

Example enforcement check:

if (!Quota::allows('storage', $bytes)) { abort(429, 'Storage quota exceeded'); }

Soft Limits and Warnings

Soft limits provide early signals before hard enforcement. They do not block execution but generate notifications or warnings.

Warning characteristics:

Configurable thresholds

Non-blocking behavior

Visible to administrators

Usage Tracking

All quota-relevant usage is tracked in real time and aggregated for reporting.

Tracked metrics:

Current consumption

Historical usage

Peak utilization

Usage data supports forecasting and operational decisions.

Adjustments and Overrides

Authorized administrators may adjust quotas or apply temporary overrides.

Override rules:

Time-bound where applicable

Fully auditable

Explicit reason required

Example override:

QuotaOverride::grant('api.requests', amount: 10000, expiresAt: now()->addDay());

Visibility and Reporting

Administrators can view quota status and trends through dashboards and reports.

Visible indicators:

Remaining quota

Consumption rate

Upcoming enforcement risk

Security and Isolation

Quotas are tenant-scoped and enforced independently. No tenant can consume resources allocated to another tenant. Enforcement logic is server-side and not bypassable by clients.