# Parallel work with no limit

Prompt · Performance and scale · P09

Finds work run in parallel with no limit, which can swamp the database connections or an outside service.

## Prompt

```text
Examine places where work is parallelized or queued without explicit limits. Find cases where a speed optimization could overwhelm rate limits, memory, connection pools or a downstream service; propose and test concurrency bounds with realistic load.
```

**What it returns:** Each fan-out with its maximum width at realistic input, the downstream limit, and a load test with a bound.

**Skip it when:** Parallel work over a fixed, small list.

**Tools:** Repository; a load-testing script pointed at a non-production copy.

**Changes:** Changes nothing

**Sessions:** One session

## Related

- [Steps that wait for no reason](https://atlasscope.dev/prompts/steps-that-wait-for-no-reason): Finds steps that wait for each other to finish when they could run at the same time.
- [When an outside service goes down](https://atlasscope.dev/prompts/when-an-outside-service-goes-down): Asks what happens to the app when Google, the AI Gateway or a service that sends it updates goes down.

Source: https://atlasscope.dev/prompts/parallel-work-with-no-limit