title: Response Status Code
description: Set custom HTTP response status codes in JustAPI handlers.
keywords: [JustAPI, status code, HTTP status, response, error handling]

Default Status Code

JustAPI returns 200 OK by default for successful responses that don't use a
Response object.

Explicit Status Code

The status_code= route decorator kwarg (e.g. @app.post("/items", status_code=201))
is OpenAPI documentation metadata only — it documents the expected success
code in the generated schema but does not alter the actual HTTP status of a
plain dict/JSON return (which is still 200).

To actually set the response status, return a Response object:

from justapi import JustAPIApp, JSONResponse

app = JustAPIApp()

@app.post("/items")
def create_item():
    return JSONResponse(content={"message": "created"}, status_code=201)

Common Status Codes

Returning a Response Directly

For full control, return a Response object:

from justapi import JSONResponse

@app.get("/custom")
def custom_response():
    return JSONResponse(
        content={"message": "custom"},
        status_code=202,
        headers={"X-Custom": "header"},
    )

See Also

• Handling Errors — exception handlers
• Additional Status Codes — advanced status code patterns
• Status Codes Reference — all available status codes