Skip to content

Improve the UX of failed vulnerability retrieval by the API #2235

@andrewpollock

Description

@andrewpollock

Describe the bug
Users try to retrieve a vulnerability (typically a CVE) by the API that the web interface reports as an alias of another vulnerability and that retrieval fails because the CVE record does not exist in OSV.dev

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behaviour:

  1. View a vulnerability record on OSV.dev with an (unlinked) alias to a CVE
  2. Attempt to retrieve that CVE via the API
  3. Get a 404/Bug not found response from the API

Expected behaviour
The user receives some pointers to documentation to assist with interpreting the search failure.

My initial thoughts:

Screenshots

Contrived example:

$ GET -s https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2025-0001
404 Not Found
{"code":5,"message":"Bug not found."}

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

apiAPI-related infrastructurebacklogImportant but currently unprioritizeddocumentationImprovements or additions to documentation

Type

No type

Projects

No projects

Milestone

No milestone

Relationships

None yet

Development

No branches or pull requests

Issue actions