202 Accepted
The server has accepted the request for processing, but the processing has not been completed — and may not be completed at all. This is used for asynchronous processing. The response should include a way to monitor the status of the request, like a job ID or a URL to poll.
What can I do?
- No action needed — this is an informational or success response, not an error.
How to debug & fix
- Include a job ID or status URL in the response body
- Implement a status endpoint (/jobs/{id}) that clients can poll
- Consider Server-Sent Events or WebSockets for real-time progress updates
- Expose a status endpoint so clients can poll; include a statusUrl in the 202 response body.
Code Example
app.post('/videos/transcode', (req, res) => {
const jobId = queue.add({ file: req.body.url });
res.status(202).json({
jobId,
status: 'processing',
statusUrl: `/jobs/${jobId}`
});
});Related Status Codes
How HTTP Status Codes Work
Every HTTP response carries a three-digit status code that tells the client — browser, API consumer, or search-engine crawler — exactly what happened. The first digit defines the class: 1xx informational (request in progress), 2xx success, 3xx redirection, 4xx client error (bad request, missing auth, not found), and 5xx server failure.
Status codes are standardised in RFC 9110 (HTTP Semantics, 2022). Extensions like WebDAV (RFC 4918) and rate-limit headers (RFC 6585) added codes beyond the core set. When a client receives an unrecognised code, the rule is to treat it as the generic x00 of its class.
Why the Right Code Matters
Semantically correct codes help search engines index accurately (301 passes link equity; 410 removes pages faster than 404), allow API clients to implement correct retry logic (429 + Retry-After, 503 + Retry-After), and let monitoring systems distinguish bugs (500) from load issues (503) from auth failures (401/403).
Looking up a different status code? The full reference covers all HTTP codes with causes, fix guides, and copyable code examples for Node.js and Python.
Browse the full HTTP Status Code reference →