| State |
Meaning |
Network result |
| Pending |
Discovered and waiting for a decision |
Nothing sent |
| Prepared |
Redacted envelope stored for preview/approval |
Nothing sent |
| Held |
Blocked by policy, privacy risk, or retry timing |
Nothing sent while held |
| Refused |
Client safety validation failed |
Nothing sent |
| Failed |
A local or network operation failed |
Verify the failure class before retrying |
| Ignored |
Project policy excludes the session |
Nothing sent |
| Outcome |
Meaning |
Next step |
accepted |
Valid trace cleared the immediate ingest/gating lane |
Store the receipt and poll status as needed |
awaiting_pii_backstop |
Otherwise eligible trace is held for an additional automated privacy pass |
Refresh status later; do not resubmit with a new ID |
quarantined |
Valid upload is held for privacy or manual review |
Store the receipt; do not resubmit blindly |
already-submitted |
Stable content identity already exists for this contribution |
Keep the returned/known ID |
rejected |
Server policy or validation refused the trace |
Correct only the named safe failure; do not brute-force retries |
revoked |
Revocation or withdrawal is recorded |
Stop treating it as available for future use |
expired / purged |
Retention lifecycle removed availability |
Keep only the safe local receipt needed for audit/history |
| Status |
Client interpretation |
400 / 422 |
Malformed or semantically invalid request; fix before retrying |
401 |
Missing, expired, or invalid authentication; refresh once |
403 |
Authenticated but not allowed; change policy or authorization, not retry timing |
409 |
State conflict; fetch current state before deciding what to do |
413 |
Request exceeds a bounded size/count limit; split only where the API permits |
429 |
Rate limit; respect Retry-After and back off |
503 |
Required service unavailable or fail-closed; retry with bounded backoff |
The deployed API’s structured error code is more specific than the HTTP class. User-facing clients should show safe remediation without displaying raw response bodies.
See What happens after submission for how these states affect credits, public snapshots, downstream use, and withdrawal.
