This chapter provides an overview of the error model for Google APIs. It also provides general guidance to developers on how to properly generate and handle errors.
Google APIs use a simple protocol-independent error model, which allows us to offer a consistent experience across different APIs, different API protocols (such as gRPC or HTTP), and different error contexts (such as asynchronous, batch, or workflow errors).
Error Model
The error model for Google APIs is logically defined by
google.rpc.Status
,
an instance of which is returned to the client when an API error occurs. The
following code snippet shows the overall design of the error model:
package google.rpc;
// The `Status` type defines a logical error model that is suitable for
// different programming environments, including REST APIs and RPC APIs.
message Status {
// A simple error code that can be easily handled by the client. The
// actual error code is defined by `google.rpc.Code`.
int32 code = 1;
// A developer-facing human-readable error message in English. It should
// both explain the error and offer an actionable resolution to it.
string message = 2;
// Additional error information that the client code can use to handle
// the error, such as retry info or a help link.
repeated google.protobuf.Any details = 3;
}
Because most Google APIs use resource-oriented API design, the error handling
follows the same design principle by using a small set of standard errors with a
large number of resources. For example, instead of defining different kinds of
"not found" errors, the server uses one standard google.rpc.Code.NOT_FOUND
error code and tells the client which specific resource was not found. The
smaller error space reduces the complexity of documentation, affords better
idiomatic mappings in client libraries, and reduces client logic complexity
while not restricting the inclusion of actionable information.
Error Codes
Google APIs must use the canonical error codes defined by
google.rpc.Code
.
Individual APIs must avoid defining additional error codes, since
developers are very unlikely to write logic to handle a large number of error
codes. For reference, handling an average of three error codes per API call
would mean most application logic would just be for error handling, which would
not be a good developer experience.
Error Messages
The error message should help users understand and resolve the API error easily and quickly. In general, consider the following guidelines when writing error messages:
- Do not assume the user is an expert user of your API. Users could be client developers, operations people, IT staff, or end-users of apps.
- Do not assume the user knows anything about your service implementation or is familiar with the context of the errors (such as log analysis).
- When possible, error messages should be constructed such that a technical user (but not necessarily a developer of your API) can respond to the error and correct it.
- Keep the error message brief. If needed, provide a link where a confused reader can ask questions, give feedback, or get more information that doesn't cleanly fit in an error message. Otherwise, use the details field to expand.
Error Details
Google APIs define a set of standard error payloads for error details, which you can find in google/rpc/error_details.proto. These cover the most common needs for API errors, such as quota failure and invalid parameters. Like error codes, developers should use these standard payloads whenever possible.
Additional error detail types should only be introduced if they can assist application code to handle the errors. If the error information can only be handled by humans, rely on the error message content and let developers handle it manually rather than introducing additional error detail types.
Here are some example error_details
payloads:
ErrorInfo
: Provides structured error information that is both stable and extensible.RetryInfo
: Describes when clients can retry a failed request, may be returned onCode.UNAVAILABLE
orCode.ABORTED
QuotaFailure
: Describes how a quota check failed, may be returned onCode.RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
BadRequest
: Describes violations in a client request, may be returned onCode.INVALID_ARGUMENT
Error Info
ErrorInfo
is a special kind of error payload. It provides stable and
extensible error information that both humans and applications can depend on.
Each ErrorInfo
has three pieces of information: an error domain, an error
reason, and a set of error metadata, such as this
example.
For more information, see the
ErrorInfo
definition.
For Google APIs, the primary error domain is googleapis.com
, and the
corresponding error reasons are defined by google.api.ErrorReason
enum.
For more information, see the
google.api.ErrorReason
definition.
Error Localization
The message
field in
google.rpc.Status
is developer-facing and must be in English.
If a user-facing error message is needed, use
google.rpc.LocalizedMessage
as your details field. While the message field in
google.rpc.LocalizedMessage
can be localized, ensure that the message field in
google.rpc.Status
is in English.
By default, the API service should use the authenticated user’s locale or HTTP
Accept-Language
header or the language_code
parameter in the request to
determine the language for the localization.
Error Mapping
Google APIs are accessible in different programming environments. Each environment typically has its own way of error handling. The following sections explain how the error model is mapped in commonly used environments.
HTTP Mapping
While proto3 messages have native JSON encoding, Google's API Platform uses a different error schema for Google's JSON HTTP APIs for backward compatibility reasons.
Schema:
// This message defines the error schema for Google's JSON HTTP APIs.
message Error {
// Deprecated. This message is only used by error format v1.
message ErrorProto {}
// This message has the same semantics as `google.rpc.Status`. It uses HTTP
// status code instead of gRPC status code. It has extra fields `status` and
// `errors` for backward compatibility with [Google API Client
// Libraries](https://developers.google.com/api-client-library).
message Status {
// The HTTP status code that corresponds to `google.rpc.Status.code`.
int32 code = 1;
// This corresponds to `google.rpc.Status.message`.
string message = 2;
// Deprecated. This field is only used by error format v1.
repeated ErrorProto errors = 3;
// This is the enum version for `google.rpc.Status.code`.
google.rpc.Code status = 4;
// This corresponds to `google.rpc.Status.details`.
repeated google.protobuf.Any details = 5;
}
// The actual error payload. The nested message structure is for backward
// compatibility with [Google API Client
// Libraries](https://developers.google.com/api-client-library). It also
// makes the error more readable to developers.
Status error = 1;
}
Example (link):
{
"error": {
"code": 400,
"message": "API key not valid. Please pass a valid API key.",
"status": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
"details": [
{
"@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.rpc.ErrorInfo",
"reason": "API_KEY_INVALID",
"domain": "googleapis.com",
"metadata": {
"service": "translate.googleapis.com"
}
}
]
}
}
gRPC Mapping
Different RPC protocols map the error model differently. For
gRPC, the error model is natively supported by the generated
code and the runtime library in each supported language. You can find out more
in gRPC's API documentation. For example, see gRPC Java's
io.grpc.Status
.
Client Library Mapping
Google client libraries may choose to surface errors differently per language to
be consistent with established idioms. For example, the
google-cloud-go
library will return an error that implements the same interface as
google.rpc.Status
,
while
google-cloud-java
will raise an Exception.
Handling Errors
Below is a table containing all of the gRPC error codes defined in
google.rpc.Code
and a short description of their cause. To handle an error, you can check the
description for the returned status code and modify your call accordingly.
HTTP | gRPC | Description |
---|---|---|
200 | OK |
No error. |
400 | INVALID_ARGUMENT |
Client specified an invalid argument. Check error message and error details for more information. |
400 | FAILED_PRECONDITION |
Request can not be executed in the current system state, such as deleting a non-empty directory. |
400 | OUT_OF_RANGE |
Client specified an invalid range. |
401 | UNAUTHENTICATED |
Request not authenticated due to missing, invalid, or expired OAuth token. |
403 | PERMISSION_DENIED |
Client does not have sufficient permission. This can happen because the OAuth token does not have the right scopes, the client doesn't have permission, or the API has not been enabled. |
404 | NOT_FOUND |
A specified resource is not found. |
409 | ABORTED |
Concurrency conflict, such as read-modify-write conflict. |
409 | ALREADY_EXISTS |
The resource that a client tried to create already exists. |
429 | RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED |
Either out of resource quota or reaching rate limiting. The client should look for google.rpc.QuotaFailure error detail for more information. |
499 | CANCELLED |
Request cancelled by the client. |
500 | DATA_LOSS |
Unrecoverable data loss or data corruption. The client should report the error to the user. |
500 | UNKNOWN |
Unknown server error. Typically a server bug. |
500 | INTERNAL |
Internal server error. Typically a server bug. |
501 | NOT_IMPLEMENTED |
API method not implemented by the server. |
502 | N/A | Network error occurred before reaching the server. Typically a network outage or misconfiguration. |
503 | UNAVAILABLE |
Service unavailable. Typically the server is down. |
504 | DEADLINE_EXCEEDED |
Request deadline exceeded. This will happen only if the caller sets a deadline that is shorter than the method's default deadline (i.e. requested deadline is not enough for the server to process the request) and the request did not finish within the deadline. |
Retrying Errors
Clients may retry on 503 UNAVAILABLE errors with exponential backoff. The minimum delay should be 1s unless it is documented otherwise. The default retry repetition should be once unless it is documented otherwise.
For 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED errors, the client may retry at the higher level with minimum 30s delay. Such retries are only useful for long running background jobs.
For all other errors, retry may not be applicable. First ensure your request
is idempotent, and see
google.rpc.RetryInfo
for guidance.
Propagating Errors
If your API service depends on other services, you should not blindly propagate errors from those services to your clients. When translating errors, we suggest the following:
- Hide implementation details and confidential information.
- Adjust the party responsible for the error. For example, a server that
receives an
INVALID_ARGUMENT
error from another service should propagate anINTERNAL
to its own caller.
Reproducing Errors
If you cannot resolve errors through analysis of logs and monitoring, you should try to reproduce the errors with a simple and repeatable test. You can use the test to collect more information for troubleshooting, which you can provide when contacting technical support.
We recommend you use curl -v
and
System Parameters to reproduce errors with
Google APIs. Together they can reproduce almost all Google API requests,
and provide you verbose debug information. For more information, see the
respective documentation pages for the API you are calling.
Generating Errors
If you are a server developer, you should generate errors with enough information to help client developers understand and resolve the problem. At the same time, you must be aware of the security and privacy of the user data, and avoid disclosing sensitive information in the error message and error details, since errors are often logged and may be accessible by others. For example, an error message like "Client IP address is not on allowlist 128.0.0.0/8" exposes information about the server-side policy, which may not be accessible to the user who has access to the logs.
To generate proper errors, you first need to be familiar with google.rpc.Code
to
choose the most suitable error code for each error condition. A server
application may check multiple error conditions in parallel, and return the
first one.
The following table lists each error code and an example of a good error message.
HTTP | gRPC | Example Error Message |
---|---|---|
400 | INVALID_ARGUMENT |
Request field x.y.z is xxx, expected one of [yyy, zzz]. |
400 | FAILED_PRECONDITION |
Resource xxx is a non-empty directory, so it cannot be deleted. |
400 | OUT_OF_RANGE |
Parameter 'age' is out of range [0, 125]. |
401 | UNAUTHENTICATED |
Invalid authentication credentials. |
403 | PERMISSION_DENIED |
Permission 'xxx' denied on resource 'yyy'. |
404 | NOT_FOUND |
Resource 'xxx' not found. |
409 | ABORTED |
Couldn’t acquire lock on resource ‘xxx’. |
409 | ALREADY_EXISTS |
Resource 'xxx' already exists. |
429 | RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED |
Quota limit 'xxx' exceeded. |
499 | CANCELLED |
Request cancelled by the client. |
500 | DATA_LOSS |
See note. |
500 | UNKNOWN |
See note. |
500 | INTERNAL |
See note. |
501 | NOT_IMPLEMENTED |
Method 'xxx' not implemented. |
503 | UNAVAILABLE |
See note. |
504 | DEADLINE_EXCEEDED |
See note. |
Error Payloads
The google.rpc
package defines a set of standard error payloads, which are
preferred to custom error payloads. The following table lists each error code
and its matching standard error payload, if applicable. We recommend advanced
applications look for these error payloads in google.rpc.Status
when they
handle errors.
HTTP | gRPC | Recommended Error Detail |
---|---|---|
400 | INVALID_ARGUMENT |
google.rpc.BadRequest |
400 | FAILED_PRECONDITION |
google.rpc.PreconditionFailure |
400 | OUT_OF_RANGE |
google.rpc.BadRequest |
401 | UNAUTHENTICATED |
google.rpc.ErrorInfo |
403 | PERMISSION_DENIED |
google.rpc.ErrorInfo |
404 | NOT_FOUND |
google.rpc.ResourceInfo |
409 | ABORTED |
google.rpc.ErrorInfo |
409 | ALREADY_EXISTS |
google.rpc.ResourceInfo |
429 | RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED |
google.rpc.QuotaFailure |
499 | CANCELLED |
|
500 | DATA_LOSS |
google.rpc.DebugInfo |
500 | UNKNOWN |
google.rpc.DebugInfo |
500 | INTERNAL |
google.rpc.DebugInfo |
501 | NOT_IMPLEMENTED |
|
503 | UNAVAILABLE |
google.rpc.DebugInfo |
504 | DEADLINE_EXCEEDED |
google.rpc.DebugInfo |