I prefer simplicity and using the first example but I’d be happy to hear other options. Here’s a few examples:

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "message": "Unauthorized access" }

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
Unauthorized access (no json)

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "error": "Unauthorized access" }

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

HTTP/1.1 200 (🤡) POST /endpoint
{
  "error": true,
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "status": 403,
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

Or your own example.

  • JakenVeinaEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    #4 for me.

    Proper HTTP Status code for semantic identification. Duplicating that in the response body would be silly.

    User-friendly “message” value for the lazy, who just wanna toss that up to the user. Also, ideally, this would be what a dev looks at in logs for troubelshooting.

    Tightly-controlled unqiue identifier “code” for the error, allowing consumers to build their own contextual error handling or reporting on top of this system. Also, allows for more-detailed types of errors to be identified and given specific handling and recovery logic, beyond just the status code. Like, sure, there’s probably not gonna be multiple sub-types of 403 error, but there may be a bunch of different useful sub-types for a 400 on a form submission.