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cURL and HTTP statuses: how to work with APIs

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How to build a cURL command for API testing and understand HTTP status codes: what 401, 403, 429 and 5xx mean and how to fix integration errors.

API testing is constant requests with different headers, bodies and parameters, and building cURL commands by hand in the console takes time and invites typos. It is just as easy to get lost in response codes: 401, 403, 429 and 503 look similar but mean very different things.

Building a cURL command

cURL Command Builder assembles a ready command from the method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), the URL, headers and request body: you pick the fields in a form, the service generates the command for your terminal. This eliminates the quote and syntax errors of manual typing.

Status codes

The HTTP status reference explains all codes from 100 to 511: what each one means, when it appears and how it is usually fixed. Most important are 4xx — client errors (e.g., 401 — unauthorized, 404 — not found, 429 — too many requests) and 5xx — server errors (500, 502, 503).

Typical scenario

The integration returned 401 → decode the JWT token, check its expiry, fix the Authorization header in cURL Command Builder → the command is rebuilt and run in the console. If you got 429, open the HTTP status reference and see that you need to increase the intervals between requests.

Common mistakes

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