Verdicts and refusals

Every message goes through one gateway, in this order:

firewall and rate limits → size → identity → JSON → SOM envelope, version and payload → grants
     → idempotency → snapshot sequence → story ownership → commit → publish to consumers

Nothing reaches a consumer unless it passes every step. A message stops at the first step that refuses it; within the SOM step, the bus reports every violation it finds, not just the first.

The response names the rule

{
  "accepted": false,
  "violations": [
    { "source": "sequence", "rule": "sequence_number.not_increasing",
      "message": "sequence_number 7 -> 6: must strictly increase…", "path": "/payload/sequence_number" }
  ]
}

• rule is a stable id. Branch on it, never on message, which is for people and may change. Every rule id has a page in the rule catalogue.
• path, when present, is a JSON Pointer into your message.
• source says who is saying no:

source	Who says no	What it means for you
schema	The SOM 1.0 JSON Schema, or a body that isn't JSON at all (message.not_json)	Your message isn't valid SOM. Fix the producer
conformance	The SOM conformance rules the schema can't express	Not valid SOM 1.0, for example a pre-1.0 wire version
sequence	SOM conformance on snapshot order, checked against the story's previous snapshot	Your story state is inconsistent. Send a fresh, complete snapshot
policy	This bus's operational rules: identity, grants, size, idempotency, story ownership	Not a SOM verdict. Check your credentials, grants, retry logic or which system writes the story

Keeping policy apart means "the standard says no" is never confused with "this bus says no".

Accepted, with notes

An accepted message may carry tolerated[]: things the bus let through but wants you to know about. A gap in sequence_number, a changed correlation_id, a payload with no schema, fields from a newer 1.x, or a snapshot from a system that doesn't own the story (in a workspace that warns, the default). They use the same shape and rule ids as violations.

Status codes

Status	Meaning	What to do
202	Accepted. tolerated[], if present, lists notes	Nothing
200	Duplicate of a message already accepted (same message_id, same content)	Nothing. Treat as success
400	Not JSON, not valid SOM 1.0, or content refused by policy	Fix the message
401	producer.unauthenticated: token missing, malformed, expired, issued before a rotation, or from the wrong environment	Get a new token
403	producer.not_registered: valid credentials, but no active connection. principal.not_verified: an AWS role that hasn't proved it's yours yet. tenant.mismatch: another workspace's route. producer.system_id_not_allowed or producer.message_type_not_allowed: outside your grants. request.blocked: refused by the firewall	Check the connection in the portal; for the firewall, ask RND
409	A sequence rule, message_id.reused or commit.contention	Send a fresh, complete snapshot with a new message_id
409	story.not_owner, in a workspace that refuses it: your system doesn't own the story	Publish from the story's owner, or ask a workspace admin for a hand-off
413	message.too_large	Send references, not media
429	rate.limited: over a rate limit (see Limits). quota.exceeded: your connection's daily allowance is used up	Back off and retry, honouring Retry-After when present
409	message.superseded: a retried snapshot that was recorded but never published, whose story has moved on. Not delivered	Nothing: the newer snapshot supersedes it
503	bus.publish_failed or registry.unavailable: not published. message.in_flight: an earlier attempt is less than 30 seconds old and not confirmed published	Retry with the same message_id

Try it without publishing

The portal's Playground runs the gateway's own checks against your workspace's story state and stops before anything is stored or sent. It checks the message, not your app's grants. To check with your app's grants too, use your workspace's validate route (see Token service and workspace API). More: The Playground.