Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod | 4 ++++
 lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm               | 3 ++-
 lib/PublicInbox/Config.pm             | 2 +-

diff --git a/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod b/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
index dae69987d0276415f0aad32de76d0ef6375d3931..d6ecd086996936419560587fede6daafac7ef93e 100644
--- a/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
+++ b/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
@@ -231,6 +231,10 @@
 C<RLIMIT_*> keys may be set to enforce resource limits for
 a particular limiter.
 
+Default named-limiters are prefixed with "-".  Currently,
+the "-cgit" named limiter is reserved for instances spawning
+cgit via C<publicinbox.cgitrc>
+
 =over 8
 
 =item publicinboxlimiter.<name>.max
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
index 3d1a0d54879739be91ec342ce933b7b4d9e25097..9ba9e14dea0efb21602381f87d851115af67125b 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
@@ -77,7 +77,8 @@ 	$cgi_env->{'HTTPS'} = 'on' if $env->{'psgi.url_scheme'} eq 'https';
 
 	my $rdr = input_prepare($env) or return r(500);
 	my $qsp = PublicInbox::Qspawn->new($self->{cmd}, $cgi_env, $rdr);
-	$qsp->psgi_return($env, undef, sub {
+	my $limiter = $self->{pi_config}->limiter('-cgit');
+	$qsp->psgi_return($env, $limiter, sub {
 		my ($r, $bref) = @_;
 		my $res = parse_cgi_headers($r, $bref) or return; # incomplete
 		$res;
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Config.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Config.pm
index 6f62712f0eb1ea43b645e52a4a7fabe3c0cc1e9c..9c1c3e2c8ca69448b7abb0968375e4b494e9fb43 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Config.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Config.pm
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ sub limiter {
 	my ($self, $name) = @_;
 	$self->{-limiters}->{$name} ||= do {
 		require PublicInbox::Qspawn;
-		my $max = $self->{"publicinboxlimiter.$name.max"};
+		my $max = $self->{"publicinboxlimiter.$name.max"} || 1;
 		my $limiter = PublicInbox::Qspawn::Limiter->new($max);
 		$limiter->setup_rlimit($name, $self);
 		$limiter;