Skip to content
Flow Flow

Ask the docs

Answers come only from these docs and are written by an AI model (Gemini), so check the linked pages. Your question is not kept. Do not include personal details or keys.

invalid_request

▾

The request is malformed or a parameter is invalid.

HTTP 400, or HTTP 413 when the request body is over the size limit. The request is malformed or a parameter is invalid.

What it means

Section titled “What it means”

Flow could not accept the request as sent: the body is not valid JSON for the endpoint, a required field is missing, or a value is outside its range. error.param names the field as a dotted path (text, telegram.parse_mode, to.telegram_user_id, limit).

Why it happens

Section titled “Why it happens”
  • A required field is missing (text on a buttons message, to, kind on a start or a webhook reply piece).
  • A send, start or edit body has a field it does not list, or a channel block (telegram, imessage) has a key it does not list (param names it): Flow refuses it rather than ignore it. There are no scheduled sends, so send_at is one of these; schedule in your own app and send then. A field the endpoint lists but the conversation’s channel does not take is unsupported_content instead.
  • kind in a send’s body names another kind than its endpoint ("kind": "buttons" on /basic).
  • A value is the wrong shape: a telegram_user_id that is a username instead of digits, an ID with the wrong prefix, limit above 100.
  • The Flow-Version header is not a date this API serves (param Flow-Version). Every endpoint checks it; leave it out to use your app’s pinned version.
  • The Idempotency-Key is longer than 255 characters (param Idempotency-Key).
  • The request body is larger than Flow takes: 32 MB, or 101 MB for POST /v0/files (a 100 MB file and its multipart framing). This answers HTTP 413. Upload media with POST /v0/files and send its file_id, or send it by url, instead of inlining it.
  • Text longer than the conversation’s channel takes (4096 characters on Telegram and WhatsApp, 9999 on iMessage, 10 segments on SMS; 1024 for captions, also when you edit a media message’s caption). Telegram counts UTF-16 code units, so an emoji such as 😀 counts as 2. Each endpoint’s page lists its limits.
  • Your answer to a message.received webhook delivery is a JSON object with an invalid reply (a reply that is not a kind object with kind, a string, or a list of 1 to 11 of them, or a piece with an unknown kind). Nothing is sent; the error is recorded on the delivery (the MCP tool get_webhook_deliveries shows it) and the delivery is not retried.

How to fix it

Section titled “How to fix it”

Read error.param and error.hint: the hint says what the field must look like. Fix that field and send again. Retrying unchanged never helps.

# Wrong: telegram_user_id must be the numeric user ID, not @username
curl https://api.flow.engineer/v0/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FLOW_MESSAGING_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"sender":"snd_...","to":{"telegram_user_id":"123456789"},"kind":"basic","text":"Hi"}'

Every error also carries hint, one sentence specific to your request, and doc_url, this page. Coding agents connected to Flow’s MCP server (https://api.flow.engineer/mcp) can call explain_error with the type to read this page.