Errors

HTTP Response Codes

Inform Direct uses standard HTTP response codes to indicate the outcome of API requests:

• 2xx codes indicate a successful request.
• 4xx codes signal client-side errors—typically due to invalid input, such as missing required parameters or an incorrect Companies House number.
• 5xx codes represent server-side errors on Inform Direct’s end, though these are rare.

Summary of Common HTTP Status Codes

• 200 OK – The request was successful.
• 400 Bad Request – The request was invalid, often due to missing required parameters.
• 401 Unauthorized – No valid API key was provided.
• 402 Request Failed – The request was valid, but processing failed.
• 403 Forbidden – The API key does not have permission to perform this request.
• 404 Not Found – The requested resource could not be found.
• 409 Conflict – The request conflicts with another request (e.g. duplicate use of an idempotent key).
• 422 Unprocessable Entity - means the server understands the content type of the request and the syntax is correct, but the server was unable to process the contained instruction.
• 429 Too Many Requests – Rate limit exceeded. We recommend using exponential backoff to retry requests.
• 500 / 502 / 503 / 504 Server Errors – An error occurred on Inform Direct’s servers. These are uncommon.