What is a status code?
A status code is the three digit number a web server returns to say whether a request worked, like 200 OK or 404 Not Found.
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A status code is the first thing in every HTTP response: a three digit number that summarises the outcome. The first digit tells you the family. 2xx means success, 3xx means go somewhere else, 4xx means you (the client) made a mistake, 5xx means the server broke. It is the traffic light of the web: green, amber, red.
You will see 200 OK for normal pages, 301 and 302 for redirects, 401 when you are not logged in, 403 when you are logged in but not allowed, 404 for a missing page, 429 when you sent too many requests, and 500 or 502 when something is wrong on the server side. Logs and monitoring dashboards are often just counts of these numbers over time.
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://example.com/See also: What is HTTP? and What is a REST API?
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See also
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- 0263 Build a notes REST API with plain Node.js: CRUD, validation, status codes and CORS Write a small JSON API for notes using only Node.js built-ins: create, read, update and delete, input validation, correct HTTP status codes,… Intermediate · Guided project · Any system Article Making requests · Node.js · Status codes 15 Oct 2026
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