Errors

When something goes wrong, the API responds with an HTTP error status and a small JSON body.

{
  "type": "INVALID_REQUEST",
  "message": "unknown source: \"TED\""
}

Field	Type	Description
type	string	Machine readable error category.
message	string	Human readable explanation. Use it for debugging, not for matching in code.

Status codes

Status	type	When
400	INVALID_REQUEST	The request is malformed or a value is not allowed. See common causes below.
404	NOT_FOUND	No tender or organisation with that id. Only Get Tender and Get Organisation return this.
500	INTERNAL_ERROR	Something failed on our side. Retry later. The message is always Something went wrong.

Common 400 causes

Message	Fix
Failed parsing JSON request	The body is not valid JSON, or a field has the wrong type. Check quotes and that lists are arrays.
Failed parsing query parameters	A query parameter has the wrong type, for example limit=abc.
unknown source: "TED"	Values are case sensitive. Use the exact lowercase identifiers from Portals.
unknown country: "DE"	Countries use three letter codes like DEU. See country codes.
unknown status: "...", unknown sortBy: "..."	Use one of the values listed on Search Tenders.
invalid CPV code "4500": expected 8 digits	CPV codes must be exactly 8 digits.
publishedAt.from must not be after publishedAt.until	Swap the dates.
estimatedValue.minValue must not exceed estimatedValue.maxValue	Swap the values.
estimatedValue.currency is required, unknown currency: "..."	Always send currency with a value filter, using a supported ISO 4217 code like EUR or USD.
invalid cursor	The cursor was changed, or the filters differ from the request that produced it. Start from the first page. See Pagination.
invalid tender id, invalid organisation id	Ids are UUIDs, for example 0195f1c2-7b3e-7a10-9c4d-3f2a8e6b1d05.

Handling errors

Check the HTTP status first. Anything other than 200 means the body is an error object, not a result.

Python

import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.tenderapi.eu/api/v1/tenders/search",
    json={"sources": ["TED"]},
)
if res.status_code != 200:
    err = res.json()
    print(res.status_code, err["type"], err["message"])

TypeScript

const res = await fetch("https://api.tenderapi.eu/api/v1/tenders/search", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ sources: ["TED"] }),
});
if (!res.ok) {
  const err = await res.json();
  console.error(res.status, err.type, err.message);
}