Cloudflare is now returning RFC 9457-compliant structured Markdown and JSON error payloads to AI agents, replacing verbose HTML error pages with machine-readable instructions. This significantly reduces payload size and token usage – by over 98% in measured tests – which is crucial for cost-effective AI agent operation. The new responses include actionable guidance, allowing agents to understand *why* an error occurred and *how* to proceed, whether that means retrying with backoff, escalating the issue, or stopping altogether.
This is a network-wide change, automatically available without any site owner configuration.
- `Accept: text/markdown` returns a yaml header and human readable markdown
- `Accept: application/json` returns JSON
- `Accept: application/problem+json` returns JSON with the `application/problem+json` content type.
This is a network-wide change, automatically available without any site owner configuration.
- `Accept: text/markdown` returns a yaml header and human readable markdown
- `Accept: application/json` returns JSON
- `Accept: application/problem+json` returns JSON with the `application/problem+json` content type.
RFC 9457 defines a standardized format for communicating error details in HTTP API responses, known as "problem details."
- Supersedes RFC 7807,
- Core fields include 'type', 'title', 'detail' and 'instance'.
- Generally paired with 4xx/5xx HTTP status codes.
- Content types `application/problem+xml`, `application/problem+json`
Example:
```
{
"type": "https://example.com/probs/invalid-input",
"title": "Invalid Input",
"status": 400,
"detail": "The provided 'age' value must be a positive integer.",
"instance": "/users/123",
"age": -5
}
```
- Supersedes RFC 7807,
- Core fields include 'type', 'title', 'detail' and 'instance'.
- Generally paired with 4xx/5xx HTTP status codes.
- Content types `application/problem+xml`, `application/problem+json`
Example:
```
{
"type": "https://example.com/probs/invalid-input",
"title": "Invalid Input",
"status": 400,
"detail": "The provided 'age' value must be a positive integer.",
"instance": "/users/123",
"age": -5
}
```
