Principle:Googleapis Python genai Pagination

Knowledge Sources	API Design Guide Pagination
Domains	API_Design, Pagination
Last Updated	2026-02-15 14:00 GMT

Overview

Design pattern for iterating through large result sets from list API endpoints using page-based traversal.

Description

Pagination divides large result sets into discrete pages, each containing a subset of results and a token pointing to the next page. This pattern prevents overwhelming clients with unbounded responses and allows lazy loading. The iterator abstraction transparently handles page boundary crossing, making paginated results appear as a single continuous sequence to the consumer.

Usage

Use this principle when consuming any list API endpoint that may return results spanning multiple pages, such as listing models, files, batch jobs, caches, or tuning jobs.

Theoretical Basis

Pagination implements the Cursor-based Iterator pattern:

# Pseudo-code for cursor-based pagination
page_token = None
while True:
    response = list_resources(page_token=page_token, page_size=N)
    for item in response.items:
        yield item
    page_token = response.next_page_token
    if not page_token:
        break

Key properties:

• Lazy: Next page is fetched only when current page is exhausted
• Transparent: Iterator abstraction hides page boundaries
• Stateless server: Page tokens encode position without server-side state
• Consistent: Each page reflects a snapshot of the data

Related Pages

• Implementation:Googleapis_Python_genai_Pager