# Temporal Cloud operations reference

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.temporal.io/llms.txt).
> Any documentation page is available as raw Markdown by appending `.md` to its URL.

> Operations Temporal Cloud counts toward a Namespace's operations per second (OPS) limit, with each one's priority and what happens when it's throttled.

> **ℹ️ Info:**
>
> For the OPS limit itself and how it scales, see [Operations per second](/evaluate/cloud/limits#operations-per-second).
> For the primary rate limit on a Namespace, see [Actions](/evaluate/cloud/actions) and [Capacity Modes](/cloud/capacity-modes).
>

Temporal Cloud rate limits each Namespace using three measures.
Actions per second (APS) is the primary limit, and [Capacity Modes](/cloud/capacity-modes) are expressed in APS.
Requests per second (RPS) and operations per second (OPS) are lower-level limits that protect the underlying services.

An operation is any work that puts load on Temporal Server, whether a user starts it directly or Temporal runs it in the background on the user's behalf.
Visibility queries are the exception.
They pass through Temporal Server, but most of their load falls on the Visibility store, so they have their own rate limits separate from OPS.

Each operation in the table lists the following:

- **Description:** What the operation does.
- **Priority:** Foreground operations have higher priority than background operations.
- **Effect of throttling:** What you observe when Temporal Cloud throttles the operation.