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Arunkumar Kumaresan
When a write operation is called with an invalid or stale user_id, some endpoints return a generic error that does not identify user_id as the cause. Users running automated pipelines cannot distinguish a user_id validation failure from other operation errors, which makes the root cause difficult to identify without manual investigation.
Workaround Limitations:
  1. Users must rule out all other possible causes (endpoint path, token permissions, payload structure) before identifying an invalid user_id as the root cause.
  2. No actionable information in the error response points to user_id as the field to check.
Requested Solution:
All endpoints that accept user_id as a required field should return a specific 400 validation error when the provided user_id does not exist in the project. Specifically:
  1. Return a description that identifies user_id as the invalid field (for example: "The user with id 'xyz' does not exist in your project.").
  2. Apply this validation response consistently across all write endpoints that accept user_id, not only the fork endpoint.
Benefits:
  1. Reduces time to identify the root cause of failed write operations in automated pipelines.
  2. Improves consistency of error messaging across the API surface.
Use Cases: CI/CD pipelines automating content updates, integrations passing user IDs from external identity systems, teams maintaining long-running automation where team membership changes over time.