API Error Response Analyzer

What is the API Error Response Analyzer?

The API Error Response Analyzer inspects your API error response JSON for quality issues, missing traceability fields, exposed stack traces, and non-standard error structures. It checks whether your error responses follow best practices like RFC 7807 Problem Details, calculates a quality score, and suggests improvements to make your API errors consistent, secure, and developer-friendly.

How to Use

1. Paste your API error response JSON into the input field
2. Click "Analyze" or wait for automatic processing
3. Review the quality score and detected issues
4. Check the suggested RFC 7807 structure for your error
5. Export the report for your team in JSON or Markdown format

Example: Poorly Structured Error Response

This error response has several issues the analyzer will detect:

{
  "status": 500,
  "error": "Internal Server Error",
  "message": "Cannot read property 'id' of undefined",
  "stack": "TypeError: Cannot read property 'id'...\n    at handler (/app/src/routes/users.js:42:15)",
  "exception": "NullPointerException in UserService"
}

What Is Checked?

• Stack trace exposure — Detects internal stack traces that reveal file paths, library versions, and code structure to potential attackers
• Missing request ID — Every error should include a unique requestId for correlating client errors with server logs
• Missing correlation ID — Distributed systems need correlationId to track requests across microservices
• Missing trace ID — traceId enables integration with distributed tracing tools (OpenTelemetry, Jaeger)
• Missing timestamp — ISO 8601 timestamps help correlate errors with server events
• HTTP error classification — Identifies client errors (4xx) vs server errors (5xx) with appropriate guidance
• RFC 7807 compliance — Checks for standard Problem Details fields: type, title, status, detail, instance
• Sensitive field exposure — Detects fields like exception, internalMessage that should not be in production responses

RFC 7807 Problem Details Format

RFC 7807 defines a standard format for HTTP API error responses. The analyzer suggests a compliant structure for your error with these fields:

• type — URI identifying the error type (e.g., https://api.example.com/errors/not-found)
• title — Short, human-readable summary of the problem
• status — The HTTP status code
• detail — Human-readable explanation specific to this occurrence
• instance — URI reference identifying the specific occurrence

API Error Response Best Practices

• Never expose stack traces, file paths, or internal implementation details in production
• Include a unique requestId in every error response for log correlation
• Add timestamps in ISO 8601 format to help with debugging timelines
• Use RFC 7807 Problem Details for consistent, machine-readable errors
• Return generic messages for 5xx errors — log details server-side only
• Include correlationId for requests that span multiple services
• Differentiate between client errors (user fixable) and server errors (team fixable)

Privacy and Security

All analysis runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your API error response — which may contain internal paths, service names, or sensitive debug information — is never transmitted to any server. No data is stored, logged, or shared.