---
title: Update an incident update
description: Updates an incident update.
url: https://docs.honeybadger.io/api/v3/incidents/update-incident-update/
---

API v3 is in preview

Endpoints and response shapes [can change before general availability](https://docs.honeybadger.io/api/v3/#preview). API v2 is unchanged.

PATCH `https://app.honeybadger.io/v3/status_pages/{status_page_id}/incidents/{incident_id}/updates/{update_id}`

[Required scope](https://docs.honeybadger.io/api/v3/authentication/#scopes) `incidents:write`

Updates an incident update.

Example request

```sh
curl -X PATCH "https://app.honeybadger.io/v3/status_pages/$STATUS_PAGE_ID/incidents/$INCIDENT_ID/updates/$UPDATE_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HONEYBADGER_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "message": "The rollback is done and error rates are back to normal."
}'
```

## Parameters

### Path parameters

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `status_page_id` required | string | Status page ID. |
| `incident_id` required | string | Incident ID. |
| `update_id` required | string | Update ID. |

## Request body

The writable fields of an incident update. `status` and `severity` default to `investigating` and `problem_detected`. If neither `start_at` nor `start_now` is given, the update starts now.

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `message` | string | The update's prose. |
| `status` | string | An incident's status. Allowed values: `maintenance_scheduled`, `in_maintenance`, `maintenance_complete`, `investigating`, `identified`, `resolving`, `monitoring`, `resolved`. |
| `severity` | string | An incident's severity. Allowed values: `problem_detected`, `degraded_performance`, `partial_outage`, `outage`, `operational`. |
| `start_at` | date-time | When the update takes effect. Only a scheduled\_maintenance incident may set this in the future. |
| `start_now` | boolean | Start the update immediately, ignoring `start_at`. An update that has already started is left as it is, so sending it again changes nothing. |
| `should_notify` | boolean | Announce the update on the status page's connected accounts and email the status page's subscribers. |

## Responses

### 200 Success

Example payload

```json
{
  "data": {
    "id": "Iu6tMn",
    "incident_id": "In3pKr",
    "message": "We have identified the cause and are rolling back.",
    "status": "maintenance_scheduled",
    "severity": "problem_detected",
    "start_at": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "should_notify": true,
    "notified_at": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "created_at": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "updated_at": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "6f1c2b0e-8d4a-4f6e-9b2a-3c5d7e9f1a2b"
  }
}
```

Response schema

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `data` required | object | An update to a status page incident. The incident's prose lives here, and its `current_status`, `current_severity` and `closed_at` are derived from its updates. |
| `data.id` required | string | |
| `data.incident_id` required | string | ID of the incident. |
| `data.message` | string \| null | The update's prose. |
| `data.status` required | string | An incident's status. Allowed values: `maintenance_scheduled`, `in_maintenance`, `maintenance_complete`, `investigating`, `identified`, `resolving`, `monitoring`, `resolved`. |
| `data.severity` required | string | An incident's severity. Allowed values: `problem_detected`, `degraded_performance`, `partial_outage`, `outage`, `operational`. |
| `data.start_at` | date-time | When the update takes effect. A future time schedules it. |
| `data.should_notify` | boolean \| null | Whether the update is announced on the status page's connected accounts. |
| `data.notified_at` | date-time \| null | When the announcement was sent. |
| `data.created_at` | date-time | When the update was posted. |
| `data.updated_at` | date-time | When the update was last changed. |
| `meta` | object | |
| `meta.request_id` | string | Unique identifier for the request, for correlating with support. |

## Errors

### 401 Unauthorized

The credential is missing, invalid, expired or revoked (`unauthorized`), or was sent in a way v3 doesn’t accept (see the examples).

Example payload: unauthorized (Missing, malformed, expired or revoked credential)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "unauthorized",
    "message": "Access denied"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Example payload: unsupported\_auth\_scheme (Sent as HTTP basic, which v3 does not accept)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "unsupported_auth_scheme",
    "message": "Send the credential as `Authorization: Bearer <token>`; v3 does not accept HTTP basic"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Example payload: credential\_in\_query (Sent as the \`auth\_token\` query parameter)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "credential_in_query",
    "message": "Credentials must be sent in the Authorization header"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Response schema

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `error` required | object | |
| `error.code` required | string | Machine-readable code. Branch on this, not the message. Allowed values: `unauthorized`, `unsupported_auth_scheme`, `credential_in_query`, `access_denied`, `insufficient_scope`, `requires_user_token`, `project_restricted`, `account_inactive`, `account_parked`, `feature_unavailable`, `not_found`, `validation_error`, `delete_failed`, `limit_reached`, `rate_limit_exceeded`, `concurrent_request`, `streams_provisioning`, `ingestion_key_not_accepted`, `maintenance_mode`, `invalid_parameter`, `forbidden_attributes`, `service_unavailable`, `ambiguous_account`, `fault_merged`. |
| `error.message` required | string | Human-readable explanation. |
| `error.details` | array\<object> \| object | A list of `{field, message}` on `validation_error` and `invalid_parameter`, and on `feature_unavailable` or `limit_reached` when one field caused the refusal; `{required_scope, token_scopes}` on `insufficient_scope`; `{merged_into, location}` on `fault_merged`. Absent when there's nothing to add. |
| `meta` | object | |
| `meta.request_id` | string | Unique identifier for the request, for correlating with support. |

### 403 Forbidden

The credential isn’t allowed to do this. `error.code` says why. An account or project the credential doesn’t cover is 404 `not_found`, not 403.

Example payload: access\_denied (The credential isn't allowed to do this to this record)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "access_denied",
    "message": "Access denied"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Example payload: insufficient\_scope (The credential lacks the permission this endpoint requires)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "insufficient_scope",
    "message": "Insufficient scope",
    "details": {
      "required_scope": "faults:write",
      "token_scopes": [
        "faults:read",
        "insights:read"
      ]
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Example payload: requires\_user\_token (The endpoint records who acted, and an account token has nobody)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "requires_user_token",
    "message": "This endpoint records the person who acted, so it requires a user credential rather than an account token"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Example payload: project\_restricted (A project-restricted credential cannot create a project)

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "project_restricted",
    "message": "Project-restricted tokens cannot create projects"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Response schema

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `error` required | object | |
| `error.code` required | string | Machine-readable code. Branch on this, not the message. Allowed values: `unauthorized`, `unsupported_auth_scheme`, `credential_in_query`, `access_denied`, `insufficient_scope`, `requires_user_token`, `project_restricted`, `account_inactive`, `account_parked`, `feature_unavailable`, `not_found`, `validation_error`, `delete_failed`, `limit_reached`, `rate_limit_exceeded`, `concurrent_request`, `streams_provisioning`, `ingestion_key_not_accepted`, `maintenance_mode`, `invalid_parameter`, `forbidden_attributes`, `service_unavailable`, `ambiguous_account`, `fault_merged`. |
| `error.message` required | string | Human-readable explanation. |
| `error.details` | array\<object> \| object | A list of `{field, message}` on `validation_error` and `invalid_parameter`, and on `feature_unavailable` or `limit_reached` when one field caused the refusal; `{required_scope, token_scopes}` on `insufficient_scope`; `{merged_into, location}` on `fault_merged`. Absent when there's nothing to add. |
| `meta` | object | |
| `meta.request_id` | string | Unique identifier for the request, for correlating with support. |

### 404 Not Found

Resource not found

Example payload

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "not_found",
    "message": "Resource not found"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Response schema

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `error` required | object | |
| `error.code` required | string | Machine-readable code. Branch on this, not the message. Allowed values: `unauthorized`, `unsupported_auth_scheme`, `credential_in_query`, `access_denied`, `insufficient_scope`, `requires_user_token`, `project_restricted`, `account_inactive`, `account_parked`, `feature_unavailable`, `not_found`, `validation_error`, `delete_failed`, `limit_reached`, `rate_limit_exceeded`, `concurrent_request`, `streams_provisioning`, `ingestion_key_not_accepted`, `maintenance_mode`, `invalid_parameter`, `forbidden_attributes`, `service_unavailable`, `ambiguous_account`, `fault_merged`. |
| `error.message` required | string | Human-readable explanation. |
| `error.details` | array\<object> \| object | A list of `{field, message}` on `validation_error` and `invalid_parameter`, and on `feature_unavailable` or `limit_reached` when one field caused the refusal; `{required_scope, token_scopes}` on `insufficient_scope`; `{merged_into, location}` on `fault_merged`. Absent when there's nothing to add. |
| `meta` | object | |
| `meta.request_id` | string | Unique identifier for the request, for correlating with support. |

### 422 Unprocessable Content

Validation error

Example payload

```json
{
  "error": {
    "code": "validation_error",
    "message": "Name can't be blank",
    "details": [
      {
        "field": "name",
        "message": "can't be blank"
      }
    ]
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "abc123"
  }
}
```

Response schema

| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `error` required | object | |
| `error.code` required | string | Machine-readable code. Branch on this, not the message. Allowed values: `unauthorized`, `unsupported_auth_scheme`, `credential_in_query`, `access_denied`, `insufficient_scope`, `requires_user_token`, `project_restricted`, `account_inactive`, `account_parked`, `feature_unavailable`, `not_found`, `validation_error`, `delete_failed`, `limit_reached`, `rate_limit_exceeded`, `concurrent_request`, `streams_provisioning`, `ingestion_key_not_accepted`, `maintenance_mode`, `invalid_parameter`, `forbidden_attributes`, `service_unavailable`, `ambiguous_account`, `fault_merged`. |
| `error.message` required | string | Human-readable explanation. |
| `error.details` | array\<object> \| object | A list of `{field, message}` on `validation_error` and `invalid_parameter`, and on `feature_unavailable` or `limit_reached` when one field caused the refusal; `{required_scope, token_scopes}` on `insufficient_scope`; `{merged_into, location}` on `fault_merged`. Absent when there's nothing to add. |
| `meta` | object | |
| `meta.request_id` | string | Unique identifier for the request, for correlating with support. |

---

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