# RespondActivityTaskFailed
Used by workers to tell the service that the [ActivityTask](API_ActivityTask.md) identified by the `taskToken` has failed with `reason` (if specified). The `reason` and `details` appear in the `ActivityTaskFailed` event added to the workflow history.
A task is considered open from the time that it is scheduled until it is closed. Therefore a task is reported as open while a worker is processing it. A task is closed after it has been specified in a call to [RespondActivityTaskCompleted](API_RespondActivityTaskCompleted.md), [RespondActivityTaskCanceled](API_RespondActivityTaskCanceled.md), RespondActivityTaskFailed, or the task has [timed out](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonswf/latest/developerguide/swf-dg-basic.html#swf-dev-timeout-types).
**Access Control**
You can use IAM policies to control this action's access to Amazon SWF resources as follows:
+ Use a `Resource` element with the domain name to limit the action to only specified domains.
+ Use an `Action` element to allow or deny permission to call this action.
+ You cannot use an IAM policy to constrain this action's parameters.
If the caller doesn't have sufficient permissions to invoke the action, or the parameter values fall outside the specified constraints, the action fails. The associated event attribute's `cause` parameter is set to `OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED`. For details and example IAM policies, see [Using IAM to Manage Access to Amazon SWF Workflows](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonswf/latest/developerguide/swf-dev-iam.html) in the *Amazon SWF Developer Guide*.
## Request Syntax
```
{
"details": "string",
"reason": "string",
"taskToken": "string"
}
```
## Request Parameters
For information about the parameters that are common to all actions, see [Common Parameters](CommonParameters.md).
The request accepts the following data in JSON format.
** [details](#API_RespondActivityTaskFailed_RequestSyntax) **
Detailed information about the failure.
Type: String
Length Constraints: Maximum length of 32768.
Required: No
** [reason](#API_RespondActivityTaskFailed_RequestSyntax) **
Description of the error that may assist in diagnostics.
Type: String
Length Constraints: Maximum length of 256.
Required: No
** [taskToken](#API_RespondActivityTaskFailed_RequestSyntax) **
The `taskToken` of the [ActivityTask](API_ActivityTask.md).
`taskToken` is generated by the service and should be treated as an opaque value. If the task is passed to another process, its `taskToken` must also be passed. This enables it to provide its progress and respond with results.
Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.
Required: Yes
## Response Elements
If the action is successful, the service sends back an HTTP 200 response with an empty HTTP body.
## Errors
For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see [Common Error Types](CommonErrors.md).
** OperationNotPermittedFault **
Returned when the caller doesn't have sufficient permissions to invoke the action.
** message **
A description that may help with diagnosing the cause of the fault.
HTTP Status Code: 400
** UnknownResourceFault **
Returned when the named resource cannot be found with in the scope of this operation (region or domain). This could happen if the named resource was never created or is no longer available for this operation.
** message **
A description that may help with diagnosing the cause of the fault.
HTTP Status Code: 400
## Examples
### RespondActivityTaskFailed Example
This example illustrates one usage of RespondActivityTaskFailed.
#### Sample Request
```
POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: swf.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.25) Gecko/20111212 Firefox/3.6.25 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0E)
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 115
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.0
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
X-Amz-Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:17:24 GMT
X-Amz-Target: SimpleWorkflowService.RespondActivityTaskFailed
Content-Encoding: amz-1.0
X-Amzn-Authorization: AWS3 AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE,Algorithm=HmacSHA256,SignedHeaders=Host;X-Amz-Date;X-Amz-Target;Content-Encoding,Signature=JC+/uds/mFEq8qca2WFs5kfp2eAEONc70IqFgHErhpc=
Referer: http://swf.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/explorer/index.html
Content-Length: 682
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache
{"taskToken": "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",
"reason": "could not verify customer credit card",
"details": "card number invalid"}
```
#### Sample Response
```
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: application/json
x-amzn-RequestId: feadaedd-3ff8-11e1-9e8f-57bb03e21482
```
## See Also
For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific AWS SDKs, see the following:
+ [AWS Command Line Interface V2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/cli2/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for .NET V4](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/DotNetSDKV4/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for C\$1\$1](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForCpp/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for Go v2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForGoV2/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for Java V2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForJavaV2/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for JavaScript V3](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForJavaScriptV3/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for Kotlin](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForKotlin/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for PHP V3](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForPHPV3/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for Python](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/boto3/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)
+ [AWS SDK for Ruby V3](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/SdkForRubyV3/swf-2012-01-25/RespondActivityTaskFailed)