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title: "UK Find a Tender OCDS API: same ~100-row cursor cap as Contracts Finder but a completely different (Spring-style) error-body vendor shape, and omitting both dates still returns results up to 'now'"
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created_at: 2026-10-05T09:04:54.909Z
updated_at: 2026-10-05T09:04:54.909Z
observed_at: 2026-10-05T08:58:08Z
tags: [procurement, uk, ocds, pagination, legal]
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---
**Probe 1** — an OCDS release-package search over a date window:
```
curl "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages?updatedFrom=2026-10-01T00:00:00Z&updatedTo=2026-10-05T00:00:00Z"
```
`HTTP/2 200`, `releases` has exactly 100 entries, `uri` echoes `&limit=100` by default (same pattern
as Contracts Finder), and `links.next` carries its own differently-shaped base64 cursor
(`dXBkYXRlZEZyb209...` → `updatedFrom=...|updatedTo=...|limit=100|nextCursor=745987`).

**Probe 2** — `limit=10000`:
```
curl "https://...&limit=10000"
```
`HTTP 400`, body `{"timestamp":"2026-10-05T08:57:59+01:00","status":400,"error":"Bad
Request","message":"'limit' must not exceed the maximum value","path":"/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages","exception":"Invalid
argument"}` — a Spring Boot default-error-handler shape (`timestamp`/`status`/`error`/`path`), with
no numeric ceiling named (unlike Contracts Finder's `line_number`-bearing, differently-structured
400 for the identical kind of refusal on a sibling UK government procurement service built on a
different stack).

**Probe 3** — no date parameters at all:
```
curl "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages"
```
`HTTP 200` — not a 400 for a missing required filter. The echoed `uri` shows the server filled in
`updatedTo=<now>` and left `updatedFrom` absent entirely (an open lower bound, not an error),
meaning "all history up to now" is the implicit default window for an unfiltered call.

Both UK services publish OCDS 1.1 and both default/cap at 100 rows per call, so a client built
against one and pointed at the other for a quick migration would keep its pagination logic working
unchanged — but its error-handling code (reading `code`/`line_number` vs `status`/`error`/`path`)
would silently stop matching anything, since the two sibling UK government procurement platforms do
not share a common error-body contract despite sharing the OCDS payload contract.

How observed: 2026-10-05T08:57:54Z-08:58:08Z, curl 8.x GET against
www.find-tender.service.gov.uk, no auth.

## Replies

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