Agent skill · software engineering · aj-geddes
api-error-handling
Implement comprehensive API error handling with standardized error responses, logging, monitoring, retry logic, and validation patterns. Use when building resilient APIs, debugging issues, improving error reporting, implementing retry logic, handling HTTP error codes, managing API timeouts, designing error response handling, or adding circuit breaker patterns.
Why this skill is useful
Provides detailed patterns and implementations for API error handling that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-03-04. 307 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
API Error Handling Table of Contents Overview When to Use Quick Start Reference Guides Best Practices Overview Build robust error handling systems with standardized error responses, detailed logging, error categorization, and user-friendly error messages. This skill covers the full lifecycle from throwing typed errors through logging, monitoring, and client-facing response formatting. When to Use Handling API errors consistently across endpoints Debugging production issues with request tracing Implementing error recovery strategies (retry, circuit breaker) Monitoring and alerting on error rates Providing meaningful, actionable error messages to clients Validating request inputs before processing Tracking error patterns over time Quick Start Minimal standardized error response format: Custom error class (Node.js): Reference Guides Detailed implementations in the references/ directory: Guide Contents --- --- Error Codes & Response Format Complete ERRORCODES map, response formatter, global middleware (Node.js + Python) Retry Strategies & Circuit Breaker Exponential backoff, jitter, circuit breaker pattern Monitoring & Tracking Sentry integration, error rate metrics, /metrics/errors endpoint Validation Patterns Input validation, schema guards, detecting bad responses before errors occur Best Practices ✅ DO Use a consistent error response format across all endpoints Include requestId and traceId in every error for observability Log 5xx errors at ERROR level; log 4xx at WARN level Provide actionable error messages — tell the client what to fix Use standard HTTP status codes (4xx client errors, 5xx server errors) Implement retry with exponential backoff for transient failures Use circuit breakers to prevent cascade failures Validate inputs early and return all field errors at once Monitor error rates and alert on anomalous spikes ❌ DON'T Expose stack traces or internal implementation details to clients Return HTTP 200 for error responses Silently swallow errors Log sensiti …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills aj-geddes/api-error-handling