Handling errors

The complete list of response codes

Commerce Layer uses HTTP response codes to show the success or failure of an API request.

• Codes in the 2xx range indicate success.

• Codes in the 4xx range indicate an error that failed given the information provided (e.g. bad request, failed validation, or authentication).

• Codes in the 5xx range indicate an unhandled error (these are rare and should never happen).

Code		Description
200	OK	The request was successfully processed and everything worked as expected.
201	Created	The request was successfully processed and a new resource was created.
204	No content	The request was successfully processed and an existing resource was deleted.
400	Bad request	The request was unacceptable, often due to sending an unsupported parameter (see example).
401	Unauthorized	The access token was not present in the request, was expired, or didn't have enough permissions.
404	Not found	The requested resource was not found, often due to a wrong resource's ID (see example).
405	Method not allowed	The request method is known by the server but has been disabled and cannot be used.
406	Not acceptable	The Accept header was not correctly set to application/vnd.api+json
409	Record not unique	The performed operation violates a unique constraint. You can safely ignore this warning.
415	Unsupported media type	The Content-type header was not correctly set to application/vnd.api+json
422	Unprocessable entity	The request body was well-formed but contains semantical errors, often due to validation constraints (see example).
423	Locked	The resource could not be deleted due to integrity constraints.
429	Too many requests	The request was not accepted because you hit one of the rate limits.
500	Internal server error	Something went wrong on our end and is being investigated by our engineers.

The error object

All the 4xx responses include an error object in the response body. The object contains the list of errors with some extra information.

Correct error handling is important. We recommend writing code that gracefully handles all possible API exceptions.

Examples

401 Unauthorized

Request

The following request tries to retrieve (with sales channel API credentials) an SKU that's not sellable in the market the app has in scope (i.e. an SKU that doesn't have a price in one of the market's price list and at least one stock item in one of the market's stock location):

curl -g -X GET \
  'https://yourdomain.commercelayer.io/api/skus/BjwqSyPrKn' \
  -H 'Accept: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-access-token'

Response

The API responds with a 401 Unauthorized status code and returns a UNAHUTORIZED error:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "title": "Access denied",
      "detail": "You are not authorized to perform this action on the requested resource.",
      "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
      "status": "401"
    }
  ]
}

422 Unprocessable Entity

Request

The following request tries to update the quantity of a line item with an out-of-range value:

curl -g -X PATCH \
  'https://yourdomain.commercelayer.io/api/line_items/saDFGhjkLZ' \
  -H 'Accept: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-access-token' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -d '{
    "data": {
      "type": "line_items",
      "id": "saDFGhjkLZ",
      "attributes": {
        "quantity": 100
      }
    }
  }'

Response

The API responds with a 422 Unprocessable Entity status code and returns a VALIDATION_ERROR:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "title": "must be less than or equal to 10",
      "detail": "quantity - must be less than or equal to 10",
      "code": "VALIDATION_ERROR",
      "source": {
        "pointer": "/data/attributes/quantity"
      },
      "status": "422",
      "meta": {
        "error": "less_than_or_equal_to",
        "value": 100,
        "count": 10
      }
    }
  ]
}

400 Bad Request

Request

The following request tries to update a price but the ID in the URL does not match the one in the body:

curl -g -X PATCH \
  'https://yourdomain.commercelayer.io/api/prices/yzkWXfgHQS' \
  -H 'Accept: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-access-token' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -d '{
  "data": {
      "type": "prices",
      "id": "YZkWXgfQHS",
      "attributes": {
        "amount_cents": 4900
      }
    }
  }'

Response

The API responds with a 400 Bad Request status code and returns a KEY_NOT_INCLUDED_IN_URL error:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "title": "Key is not included in URL",
      "detail": "The URL does not support the key 10272",
      "code": "KEY_NOT_INCLUDED_IN_URL",
      "status": "400"
    }
  ]
}

404 Not Found

Request

The following request tries to fetch a non-existing SKU:

curl -g -X GET \
  'https://yourdomain.commercelayer.io/api/skus/XxYyZzKkJj' \
  -H 'Accept: application/vnd.api+json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-access-token'

Response

The API responds with a 404 Not Found status code and returns a RECORD_NOT_FOUND error:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "title": "Record not found",
      "detail": "The requested resource was not found. Please double-check the resource id.",
      "code": "RECORD_NOT_FOUND",
      "status": "404"
    }
  ]
}