Claude Code: API Error: 500 Internal server error

What it means

The Claude API (or the provider behind your endpoint) returned a 5xx response. Per the official error reference, a 5xx from the API indicates an unexpected failure inside the API and is not caused by your prompt, settings, or account. Older versions printed the raw JSON form: API Error: 500 {"type":"error","error":{"type":"api_error","message":"Internal server error"}}.

Causes

• An unexpected failure inside the API or the inference provider (Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, Microsoft Foundry, or a custom gateway)
• A proxy, load balancer, or gateway answering with an HTML error page, shown as for example API Error: 502 Bad Gateway
• Short-lived service incidents: on issue #3127 an Anthropic contributor replied "We had a brief increase in errors, this should be resolved now!" and closed it

How to fix it

1. 1
   Fix 1.

   Check status.claude.com, or the provider status page named in the message, for active incidents.

2. 2
   Fix 2.

   Wait a minute, then send your message again. Your original message is still in the conversation, so for a long prompt you can type try again instead of pasting it again.

   Snippet

   Copy

   try again

3. 3
   Fix 3.

   If the error persists with no posted incident, run /feedback so Anthropic can investigate with your request details.

   Slash command

   Copy

   /feedback