Previously we had an ability to reject transactions that had too many intents, however this was tied together with the limit where we condense spans. The limits have too different purposes and should be set independently. The condense size limit
(kv.transaction.max_intents_bytes) is used to protect the memory on the client side by using less precise tracking once it passes a certain size. The new limit (kv.transaction.reject_intents_bytes) is intended to protect the server side by preventing a client from creating a transaction with too many bytes in it. Large transactions are suboptimal for a few reasons.
Epic: none
Release note (ops change): Adds a new configurable parameter kv.transaction.reject_intents_bytes which will prevent client transactions from getting too large.
cockroach-teamcity
commented
13 hours ago 
Previously we had an ability to reject transactions that had too many intents, however this was tied together with the limit where we condense spans. The limits have too different purposes and should be set independently. The condense size limit (kv.transaction.max_intents_bytes) is used to protect the memory on the client side by using less precise tracking once it passes a certain size. The new limit (kv.transaction.reject_intents_bytes) is intended to protect the server side by preventing a client from creating a transaction with too many bytes in it. Large transactions are suboptimal for a few reasons.
Epic: none
Release note (ops change): Adds a new configurable parameter kv.transaction.reject_intents_bytes which will prevent client transactions from getting too large.