$limit being applied against all items in context not each item in context

[ericuldall]

I have the following loader:

 products: virtual(async (item, context) => {
    return context.params.loader.service('saved-products').multi('lists').load(item._id, {
      ...getAuthenticatedParams(context),
      query: {
        userId: item.userId,
        $limit: 4,
        $sort: { createdAt: -1 },
        $select: ['_id', 'image', 'imageUpload', 'lists'],
      },
    });
  }),

So for this it's loading matching saved products in each of my lists. I want it to $limit to 4 saved products per list. But the actual behavior is it's limiting to 4 saved products total (across all lists). So any list after the first 4 products returned show as empty lists.

Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?

[DaddyWarbucks]

It's not a bug in the loader nor something you are doing wrong. It's more of a misunderstanding of how the loader works and some of its limitations. It's important to understand how the loader turns your queries into an $in query. I think I actually have some updated branches/code that disallows the $limit.
But I see what you are going for there. I suppose I could rig up something for $limit with multi, but it won't be a true DB query.
I am away from the office this week. Please ping me next week and we can work more on this

[ericuldall]

Okay, that makes sense that in this case since i'm not directly targeting _id's the loader wouldn't be effective.