Debug an API response

Inspect a raw API payload, diff it against an expected response, and format stack traces when the failure is in the error body.

Step 1

Normalize the raw response first

Paste the full response body into JSON Viewer so you can pretty-print it, collapse noisy branches, and spot missing or renamed fields. If the payload is not valid JSON, that failure is useful signal on its own.

Continue in JSON Viewer

Step 2

Compare expected and actual payloads

Once the response is readable, paste the expected JSON and the actual JSON into JSON Diff. Look for shape changes, nulls, empty arrays, and type mismatches before you dig into backend code.

Compare with JSON Diff

Step 3

Format stack traces from error responses

If the API returned an error object with an embedded stack trace, clean that trace up before sharing it or scanning it. Use the generic stack-trace formatter for mixed traces, or the Java formatter when the payload contains a JVM exception block.

Format in Stack Trace Formatter

Step 4

Use the Java-specific formatter when needed

For Java exceptions with nested causes, the Java Exception Formatter can make the output easier to read and paste into tickets. It is especially handy when the response body includes a raw exception copied from logs.

Open Java Exception Formatter