API Pagination

A practical example

Example: an ops engineer syncing 200K records finds the vendor's API returns 100 records per request with cursor-based pagination.

They build a loop that follows each cursor until exhausted, and add a check for duplicate records in case a sync restarts mid-run.

What to evaluate before investing

• Ask which pagination style the API uses; cursor-based pagination is generally more reliable for large, changing datasets than offsets.
• Check whether the API exposes the total record count or a next-page marker, so your sync knows when to stop.
• Confirm behavior when records change between pages, so a long sync does not silently skip or duplicate data.

Limitations and tradeoffs

Pagination interacts with rate limits: retrieving a large dataset page by page can hit request caps, so sync duration and scheduling need planning, not just a working loop.