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MarkdownScribe

unauthorized

HTTP status: 401 Unauthorized · Charged: no

What it means

Section titled “What it means”

The API could not identify who is calling. On the six operations (/v1/md/* and /v1/url-to-md), that means the X-API-Key header is missing, malformed, unknown, or belongs to a revoked key. All four cases return the same body on purpose, so the response never reveals whether a key exists.

On the account endpoints (/v1/account/*, used by the dashboard), it means there is no signed-in session. API keys do not work there.

The response also carries the header WWW-Authenticate: ApiKey realm="markdownscribe".

What to do

Section titled “What to do”
  1. Create a key at dashboard.markdownscribe.com if you do not have one. The key is shown once, when you create it.
  2. Send it in the X-API-Key header on every call. With the CLI or the SDK, set the MDSCRIBE_API_KEY environment variable.
  3. If the key worked before, it may have been revoked. Create a new one.

The next_step field suggests mdscribe login. That command arrives in a later CLI release; until then, use a key from the dashboard as above.

Example response

Section titled “Example response”

Captured from the production API on 2026-10-13, calling POST /v1/md/frontmatter without a key.

{
  "error": "unauthorized",
  "hint": "Send a valid API key in the X-API-Key header. If you don't have one yet, create it from the dashboard; a revoked key returns this same error.",
  "next_step": "mdscribe login",
  "docs_url": "https://docs.markdownscribe.com/errors/unauthorized",
  "request_id": "01M4TRDFFXE8P24K3A86VZ7VHZ"
}
Section titled “Related”