Medifontis
🇦🇺 EN
Get API key

Docs / Guides

Errors and rate limits

The API answers with standard HTTP status codes and a JSON body that explains the error.

Error format

400 Bad Request 
{
  "error": "q must contain 3–120 characters"
}

Status codes

Code Meaning
200 Success.
400 A parameter is missing or invalid; the message says which.
401 The key is missing, malformed, revoked or expired.
403 The key does not permit this search.
404 Unknown endpoint, or a record the source no longer publishes.
429 Rate limit exceeded.
503 Temporarily unavailable.

Rate limits

Each key can make 300 requests per minute, and an aggregate limit protects the service for everyone. Responses over the limit answer 429 with a Retry-After header in seconds.

Retries

Retry 429 and 503 after the number of seconds in Retry-After, with a bounded number of attempts. Do not retry other 4xx errors: the request needs to change.

Node.js 
async function medifontis(path, params, attempts = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 1; ; attempt++) {
    const response = await fetch(`https://api.medifontis.com${path}?${new URLSearchParams(params)}`, {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.MEDIFONTIS_API_KEY}` },
    })
    if (response.ok) return response.json()
    if (![429, 503].includes(response.status) || attempt === attempts) {
      throw new Error(`Medifontis ${response.status}: ${(await response.json()).error}`)
    }
    const seconds = Number(response.headers.get('retry-after')) || 2 ** attempt
    await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, seconds * 1000))
  }
}

Caching

Responses carry Cache-Control: no-store. If you store results in your own system, keep their retrievedAt and refresh them with GET /v1/drugs/record.