Errors

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Every failure returns a JSON body with a stable machine-readable error code. Branch on error, never on message — messages are written for humans and are reworded without notice.

Response shape

{
  "error": "KYC_REQUIRED",
  "message": "Person must have approved KYC",
  "details": { "personDid": "did:bfid:person:..." }
}

details is present only on codes that carry structured context.

Request-body validation failures carry the field-level problems instead:

{
  "error": "VALIDATION_ERROR",
  "message": "...",
  "issues": [{ "path": ["ownerPublicKey"], "message": "Required", "code": "invalid_type" }]
}

issues lists field-level problems — path locates the offending field, which is usually enough to fix the call without a support ticket.

Unhandled server faults return INTERNAL with a fixed "Internal error" message. Quote your x-correlation-id (see Authentication) when opening a support ticket.

Codes

Authentication and authorization

Code	HTTP	Meaning	What to do
`UNAUTHORIZED`	401	Missing, malformed, revoked, or expired key; or a bad request signature	Check the bearer header. If signing is on, see the signing failure table — the `message` distinguishes skew, replay, and mismatch
`FORBIDDEN`	403	Key is valid but lacks the scope, or the caller's IP is outside the allowlist	Mint a key with the right scope, or add the egress address you get from `GET /v1/whoami`
`RATE_LIMITED`	429	Plan quota or the per-IP backstop exceeded	Wait `Retry-After` or `x-ratelimit-plan-reset` seconds, then retry with jitter

Request problems

Code	HTTP	Meaning	What to do
`VALIDATION_ERROR`	400	Body or query failed schema validation	Read `issues[].path`; fix the field
`BAD_REQUEST`	400	Well-formed but not acceptable — e.g. an `Idempotency-Key` over 255 characters	Read `message`; this is a client bug, not a transient fault
`NOT_FOUND`	404	No such account, person, job, or key in your organization	Confirm the identifier, and that it belongs to the key's organization
`CONFLICT`	409	State does not allow the operation, or an idempotency key was reused with a different body	Re-read current state before retrying

Identity lifecycle

Code	HTTP	Meaning	What to do
`KYC_REQUIRED`	403	The Person has no approved KYC, and your organization requires it before this operation	Run `/v1/kyc/start` and wait for approval before `/v1/accounts/free`
`ACCOUNT_NOT_PROVISIONAL`	409	The account is not in a lifecycle state this operation accepts	Fetch `GET /v1/accounts/{did}` and check `lifecycle`. A second unlock on an already-unlocked account is a no-op (`200`), not this error
`NONCE_INVALID`	400	Bind nonce missing, already spent, or expired	Request a fresh `/v1/bind/challenge`; nonces are single-use
`INVALID_SIGNATURE`	400	The bind signature does not verify against the account's key	Confirm you signed `payloadToSign` verbatim with the key registered as `ownerPublicKey`
`PERSON_ACCOUNT_CAP`	409	The Person already holds the maximum bound accounts; `details.max` is the limit	Surface it to the user rather than retrying

An unavailable account name is not an error: GET /v1/accounts/name-available returns 200 with {"available": false, "reason": "TAKEN"}. Check it before you offer a name to a user, and treat reason as a display hint rather than a failure.

Upstream and dependencies

Code	HTTP	Meaning	What to do
`CHAIN_FAILURE`	502	The chain write failed or could not be confirmed across RPC endpoints	Safe to retry with the same `Idempotency-Key`; do not mint a second account
`KYC_CREATE_TOKEN_STALE`	409	The one-time create token from `GET /kyc/status` expired or was already spent — the person is still KYC-approved	Fetch `GET /v1/kyc/status?personDid=…` for a fresh token and retry the create. Do not send the applicant through verification again; `details.recover` carries the exact route
`PROVIDER_FAILURE`	502	A KYC/AML provider rejected the request; `message` names which	Not transient — the same request gets the same answer. Check the level name and credentials, then quote the correlation ID
`PROVIDER_UNAVAILABLE`	503	Every configured KYC provider was unreachable or erroring	Already retried and, where configured, failed over to a standby before you saw this. Retry with backoff; `details.retryAfterSec` is present when the provider named a window
`INTERNAL`	500	Unhandled fault	Retry idempotently with backoff; report with the correlation ID if it persists

Retrying

Class	Retry?
`429`	Yes — after `Retry-After` / `x-ratelimit-plan-reset` seconds, with jitter
`503`	Yes — every provider was down; honour `details.retryAfterSec` when present
`502`, `500`	Yes — exponential backoff, and always with the original `Idempotency-Key` on billable endpoints. `PROVIDER_FAILURE` is the exception: it is the provider's considered answer, so fix the request instead
`401`, `403`	No — except a signing `401`, where the fix is a freshly signed request, not a resend
`400`, `404`, `409`	No — the request needs changing, not repeating

Retrying a billable endpoint without its original Idempotency-Key is how a retry becomes a double charge. See Idempotency.