# Retrieve experiment settings `GET /api/v1/experiment-settings` The programme-wide holdback: the share of visitors held out of EVERY experiment, in basis points of 10000. It is the control the aggregate lift of the whole optimization effort is measured against, and a client reading a per-experiment result should know it exists, since the held-out slice is in no arm's exposures. A store that has never written the row answers 200 with holdback_bps 0 and updated_at null rather than 404. "Nobody is held out" is a real state of the programme and is what the engine itself does with a missing row. ## Responses - `200` — Success - `400` — The request was refused before any state changed. `code` is one of: `invalid_body`, a write body this route will not take. `reason` partitions it and `field` names the key when one key is at fault. `invalid_query`, a query parameter, including limit and after. `invalid_text`, a NUL byte or bytes that are not valid UTF-8 anywhere in the path, the query or the body. Strip control characters before sending. `idempotency_key_required`, a write sent without the Idempotency-Key header. `invalid_request`, an Idempotency-Key longer than 255 bytes. Routes add their own codes for rules only they know. Switch with a default arm. - `401` — No credential, or one this API does not accept. `code` is always `unauthorized`. THE BODY IS DELIBERATELY UNINFORMATIVE. An expired key, a revoked key, a publishable key, a key belonging to another merchant and a key that never existed are all refused with the same bytes, so this response cannot be used to probe which keys exist. Check the key's state in the dashboard rather than inferring it here. Send the key as `Authorization: Bearer ` or as `X-API-Key: `. It is never accepted in a query string. - `403` — The key lacks the read_experiments scope. `code` is `insufficient_scope` and the message names the scope to ask the merchant for. - `429` — Too many requests. `code` is `rate_limited`. Two limits apply independently: one on the credential and the route family, one on the client address. The headers describe whichever has less left, so honouring Retry-After always clears the window that bound. - `default` — Any status this operation does not list, in the same envelope. A 5xx means the request may or may not have applied. Retry it with the SAME Idempotency-Key: that is the only way to find out without risking a duplicate, and it is what the key is for. A few 4xx conditions arrive here rather than as a listed status because they depend on the merchant's plan or on a module being wired: 402 when a quota or a plan limit is reached, and 503 when a capability the route needs is not configured on this deployment. Both carry a `code` naming which. ## Example ```bash curl --request GET \ --url 'https://api.mercemur.com/api/v1/experiment-settings' \ --header 'Authorization: Bearer ' ```