Reading common error codes

What 401 / 402 / 404 / 429 / 5xx mean and what to check first.

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401 Unauthorized

The token is wrong, deleted, or malformed. Check the header reads Bearer sk-xxx — note the space after Bearer.

402 Insufficient balance

Not enough balance for this request's hold. Top up and it resumes; no config change needed.

404 Not found

Almost always a wrong URL. Confirm you use https://api.router.ai/v1/... with exactly one /v1. A misspelled model name also returns 404 — model ids are listed on the Models page.

429 Rate limited

An upstream rate limit was hit. Just retry.

5xx Upstream error

The upstream model service failed. We pass through the original upstream error body so you can diagnose it. These are usually transient — retry. Tell us if one model fails persistently.

Suggested order: status code → message in the body → your billing log. If the call is absent from your billing log, it never reached us and the problem is client-side.

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