Errors & Status Codes · Developers

The Dailybot API returns standard HTTP status codes on every response. Successful responses fall in the 2xx range; client errors in 4xx; server errors in 5xx. Every error body follows the same shape: a top-level detail string, a machine-readable code, and optional per-field validation errors under errors.

Error response envelope

Every non-2xx response is a JSON object with at minimum a detail and code field. Validation errors (400 responses on write endpoints) additionally include a per-field errors map. Rate limits (429) return a Retry-After header alongside the JSON body.

{
  "detail": "Human-readable explanation",
  "code": "machine_readable_code"
}

Some errors include additional fields:

• upgrade_url — present on plan_upgrade_required responses, linking directly to the billing upgrade page
• Retry-After header — present on 429 responses, indicating seconds until the limit resets

Always dispatch on code, not detail. The detail string is for humans; it may change. The code values are frozen — see Machine-readable error codes below.

Status codes returned by the public API

Status	When you get it	How to recover
200 OK	Successful GET, PATCH, or a POST that returns the resource.	Nothing to do — success.
201 Created	Successful POST that creates a new resource.	The resource is in the response body; note the uuid.
202 Accepted	Request was accepted for async processing (send-message, send-email, workflow trigger).	Poll or subscribe to a webhook to know when it completes.
204 No Content	Successful DELETE or PATCH where no body is returned.	No body to parse; success.
400 Bad Request	Validation error. The errors field contains per-field messages. Check code for specifics.	Fix the payload and retry. Never retry blindly.
401 Unauthorized	Missing, expired, or invalid credential.	Confirm your API key or refresh your CLI Bearer session with dailybot login.
403 Forbidden	Credential is valid but the caller lacks permission. Plan/auth 403s carry a stable code — see machine codes.	Check the code field and the auth method matrix.
404 Not Found	Resource does not exist, or the caller cannot see it in this organization.	Verify the UUID and the scope of the credential.
409 Conflict	The write conflicts with the current state (e.g. transitioning a form response to an invalid workflow state).	Re-read the resource, choose the correct next state, retry.
422 Unprocessable Entity	The payload is syntactically valid but semantically invalid.	Read detail — the message identifies the offending field.
429 Too Many Requests	Rate limit exceeded.	Respect the Retry-After header. See /developers/rate-limits.
500 Internal Server Error	Unexpected error on the Dailybot side.	Retry with exponential backoff. If it persists, contact support.
502 / 503 / 504	Upstream outage or maintenance window.	Retry with exponential backoff.

Retry policy

Retry only on 429, 502, 503, 504, and idempotent 5xx. Never retry a 4xx blindly — the error is on your side. For 429, honor Retry-After; for 5xx, use exponential backoff (start at 250 ms, cap at 30 s, add jitter).

Machine-readable error codes

Every plan-gate, capability-gate, and rate-limit response carries a stable code field alongside the human-readable detail. Integrations should dispatch on code, never parse the prose.

Stability guarantee: The code values listed here are frozen — existing values will never change meaning or be reused. New codes may be added in future API updates, but none of the codes below will ever change.

Auth & plan gate codes

code	HTTP	When you get it
invalid_credentials	403	Credentials supplied but don’t resolve to a valid key or token
api_key_owner_inactive	403	The API key’s owner user is deactivated
plan_free_api_keys_forbidden	403	The API key’s organization is on a free plan
plan_missing_core_api_integrations	403	The org’s plan doesn’t include API access
plan_upgrade_required	403	Free-plan CLI Bearer token hit a non-allowlisted endpoint
free_plan_daily_limit_exceeded	429	Free-plan daily rate limit reached for this endpoint
org_admin_required	403	The action requires organization admin role
member_in_scope_required	403	Target user is not in the same organization

API key management codes

code	HTTP	When you get it
agent_key_admin_only	400	Non-admin tried to create an agent key
target_user_inactive	400	Target user for key creation is deactivated
target_user_not_found	400	Target user UUID not found in the organization

Messaging codes

code	HTTP	When you get it
send_as_user_conflict	400	send_as_user combined with bot_username, bot_icon_url, or bot_icon_emoji
send_as_user_invalid_uuid	400	Invalid UUID format in send_as_user
send_as_user_not_found	400	User not found, inactive, or in a different org for send_as_user
cli_send_message_target_not_allowed	403	CLI caller tried to send a message to an out-of-scope target

Filter & query codes

code	HTTP	When you get it
search_query_too_long	400	?search= exceeds 256 characters. Applies uniformly to /v1/forms/, /v1/checkins/, /v1/forms/{uuid}/responses/, /v1/checkins/{uuid}/responses/, /v1/kudos/, /v1/workflows/, /v1/users/.
invalid_date_range	400	?start_date or ?end_date is not a valid YYYY-MM-DD date, or start_date > end_date. Applies to every endpoint accepting start_date / end_date.
invalid_user_identifier	400	?user= is not a valid UUID. Use the user’s UUID from GET /v1/users/. Applies to /v1/checkins/{uuid}/responses/ and /v1/forms/{uuid}/responses/.
not_valid_kudos_filter	400	Deprecated alias — use invalid_kudos_filter.
invalid_kudos_filter	400	?filter= is not one of kudos_received / kudos_given (case-insensitive). Applies to /v1/kudos/ and /v1/kudos/organization/.
invalid_sender_uuid	400	?sender_uuid= is not a valid UUID. Applies to /v1/kudos/ and /v1/kudos/organization/.
invalid_receiver_uuid	400	?receiver_uuid= is not a valid UUID. Applies to /v1/kudos/ and /v1/kudos/organization/.
invalid_workflow_state	400	?state= is not a valid workflow state for the form. Applies to /v1/forms/{uuid}/responses/.
form_response_view_all_forbidden	403	Member used ?all=true on a form they are not allowed to view all responses for.

JSON error responses: Every /v1/** error response is guaranteed to be application/json — the API never returns HTML error pages for client-input validation failures.

Authoring codes (forms & check-ins)

code	HTTP	When you get it
unknown_field	400	Request body contains an unrecognized key on config endpoints
questions_required	400	Create called without at least one question
short_question_required	400	Question missing short_question without generate_short_question
checkin_requires_participant	400	Check-in create/config with zero participants
anonymous_irreversible	400	Attempt to disable anonymity on an anonymous check-in
report_channel_not_found	400	report_channels contains an ID not returned by GET /v1/report-channels/
too_many_report_channels	400	More than 3 report channels provided
question_uuids_incomplete	400	Reorder request missing one or more question UUIDs

Admin-only endpoints

Non-admin members receive 403 with code: "org_admin_required" on these endpoints:

Endpoint	Methods
/v1/kudos/organization/	GET
/v1/webhook-subscription/	POST, DELETE
/v1/webhook-subscription/sample/	POST
/v1/open-conversation/	POST
/v1/teams/{uuid}/members/{uuid}/	GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE
/v1/teams/{uuid}/invite/	POST
/v1/followups/	POST (create only)