Integrate Behance Public Projects: Client ID, Pagination, and Rate Limits

Problem and takeaway

You need to surface public Behance projects in your own backend, but unauthenticated requests are rejected and large result sets must be retrieved page by page. The useful takeaway is to send your Behance client_id as a query parameter on every request, iterate through the page parameter using the pagination object in the response, and check the X-RateLimit-Remaining header before you hit a 429 Too Many Requests response.

This guide assumes a server-side integration that calls the Behance REST API directly. It does not cover OAuth user flows, frontend embedding, or republishing copyrighted project content outside Adobe’s terms of service.

Prerequisites

• A Behance developer account and an active client_id from the Adobe or Behance developer portal.
• A server or local environment that can make outbound HTTPS requests, such as cURL, Python, or Node.js.
• A place to store secrets outside version control, such as environment variables or a secrets manager.

1. Store the client ID securely

The client_id authenticates your application to the Behance API. Treat it like a password: do not commit it to Git, and do not embed it in frontend code where visitors can read it.

Run this in your server shell, replacing the placeholder with your actual ID:

export BEHANCE_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id-here"

Where to run: the shell or deployment environment for your backend. Permissions: the user account running the application must be able to read the variable; restrict file permissions if you store it in a dotenv file. Risk: if the value leaks, regenerate it in the developer portal.

2. Request the first page of projects

Call the /v2/projects endpoint with client_id as a query parameter. The example below requests public projects and limits the response to a small set of fields to reduce payload size.

curl -i "https://api.behance.net/v2/projects?client_id=$BEHANCE_CLIENT_ID&per_page=10"

Where to run: any terminal with network access to the Behance API, or from backend code using an HTTP client. Permissions: none beyond outbound HTTPS. Expected check: HTTP 200 OK and a JSON body containing a pagination object with page, pages, and total. Risk: omitting client_id or using an inactive key should return 401 Unauthorized; confirm this only once because it consumes part of your daily quota.

3. Paginate through all results

The API returns a pagination object that describes how many pages exist. Increment the page query parameter until you reach the last page.

PAGE=1
while [ "$PAGE" -le "$TOTAL_PAGES" ]; do
  curl -s "https://api.behance.net/v2/projects?client_id=$BEHANCE_CLIENT_ID&per_page=10&page=$PAGE"
  PAGE=$((PAGE + 1))
done

Expected check: compare the number of projects collected against pagination.total. If the counts differ, stop and inspect whether the response changed or whether you hit an error partway through.

4. Monitor rate limits and recover from errors

Behance enforces a daily request quota. Inspect the response headers on every call, especially X-RateLimit-Remaining. If the remaining count is low, or if you receive 429 Too Many Requests, pause and retry with exponential backoff (for example, wait one second, then two, then four) before continuing.

Status	Likely cause	Recovery action
400 Bad Request	Invalid query parameter or missing field	Validate the request URL and parameter names against current documentation.
401 Unauthorized	Missing or invalid client_id	Check the environment variable and regenerate the key if necessary.
403 Forbidden	Credentials valid but not permitted for this resource	Review your developer account permissions and API terms.
429 Too Many Requests	Daily quota exhausted or request rate too high	Wait until the quota resets, then reduce request frequency.
500-series	Server-side error	Retry with exponential backoff; do not retry 4xx errors blindly.

Verification steps

1. Run the cURL request in section 2 and confirm the response code is 200 OK.
2. Inspect pagination.total and collect pages until page equals pages; verify the accumulated project count matches total.
3. Temporarily remove client_id from one request and confirm you receive 401 Unauthorized, then restore the key immediately.

These behaviors are described in the integration brief but have not been independently verified against the live API. Confirm header names, quota limits, and endpoint paths in Adobe’s current Behance API documentation before deploying to production.

Limitations

• This approach retrieves only public project data; it does not authenticate individual Behance users or access private collections.
• The daily quota is shared across all requests made with the same client_id, so cache responses where appropriate.
• Endpoints, query parameters, and headers may change without notice. Do not hardcode response field names in critical paths without a version check.
• Displaying project images or text may be subject to copyright and Adobe’s terms of service; review those terms before republishing content.

Because the API is read-only, there is no database state to roll back. If a leaked client_id is suspected, revoke it in the developer portal and rotate to a new value in your environment variables.