---
title: "Describe information about a transaction"
method: POST
path: "/v1/transaction/{id}/describe"
tags: ["Transaction", "Metadata"]
---

# Describe information about a transaction

`POST /v1/transaction/{id}/describe`

Return a detailed information for a given transaction

## Path parameters

- `id` string, required

## Query parameters

- `delimiter` string

## Request body

- DescribeTransactionRequest
  - `identity` Identity — Identity information of a request.
    - `api_key` string — API key for authentication. REST NAMESPACE ONLY This is passed via the `x-api-key` header.
    - `auth_token` string — Bearer token for authentication. REST NAMESPACE ONLY This is passed via the `Authorization` header with the Bearer scheme (e.g., `Bearer <token>`).
  - `context` unknown
  - `id` string[]

## Response `200`

Response of DescribeTransaction

- DescribeTransactionResponse
  - `context` unknown
  - `status` string, required — The status of a transaction. Case insensitive, supports both PascalCase and snake_case. Valid values are: - Queued: the transaction is queued and not yet started - Running: the transaction is currently running - Succeeded: the transaction has completed successfully - Failed: the transaction has failed - Canceled: the transaction was canceled
  - `properties` unknown

## Other responses

- `400` — Indicates a bad request error. It could be caused by an unexpected request body format or other forms of request validation failure, such as invalid json. Usually serves application/json content, although in some cases simple text/plain content might be returned by the server's middleware.
- `401` — Unauthorized. The request lacks valid authentication credentials for the operation.
- `403` — Forbidden. Authenticated user does not have the necessary permissions.
- `404` — A server-side problem that means can not find the specified resource.
- `503` — The service is not ready to handle the request. The client should wait and retry. The service may additionally send a Retry-After header to indicate when to retry.
- `5XX` — A server-side problem that might not be addressable from the client side. Used for server 5xx errors without more specific documentation in individual routes.

## Changes

- **2026-07-01** `591cd95574b0` — 7 info
  - added the optional property `context` to the response with the `200` status
  - added the optional property `context` to the response with the `400` status
  - added the optional property `context` to the response with the `401` status
  - added the optional property `context` to the response with the `403` status
  - …3 more
- **2026-01-02** `83f8516f0507` — 1 info
  - added the new optional request property `context`
- **2026-01-01** `c987c26ccb0f` — 1 info
  - added the new optional request property `identity`
- **2025-12-20** `5d6099d672d3` — 6 breaking, 6 warning, 6 info
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `400`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `401`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `403`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `404`
  - …14 more
- …earlier changes not shown

[Full history](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/changes/v1/transaction/:id/describe/post.md)

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc-service-production.skmtc.workers.dev/v1/apis/lance-format/lance-namespace-specification/revisions/6add052ac039/schema)