---
title: "Rename an owned machine's console label"
method: PATCH
path: "/api/nodes/{node_id}"
tags: ["nodes"]
---

# Rename an owned machine's console label

`PATCH /api/nodes/{node_id}`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://app.nerdit.ai` (the document declares no server; this is the origin it was published from)
- URL: `https://app.nerdit.ai/api/nodes/{node_id}`
- Auth: none declared

Write the owner's own label for their machine, and nothing else.

Task 12 §"Renaming a node", work item D6. One column moves. The
*address* — ``<slug>.<nodes_base_domain>``, and the hosted host
``<app>--<slug>`` built from the same slug — is untouchable here and
this route has no expression for touching it: the slug is identity
rather than a name, guarded by the generator, by
:func:`~nerdit_cloud.nodes.hosted.assert_slug` and by the
``slug_no_double_hyphen`` check constraint, and renaming it would
invalidate live URLs, DNS records and the certificate they sit under.
The console says so on the form, beside the unchanged hostname, because
this is the point at which the label and the address part company
permanently.

**Standing-gated, not entitlement-gated (D-NC8).** The refusal ladder
stops at :func:`assert_account_active`: a Free account reaches the same
machine's own dashboard and renames it there for nothing, so a console
that charged for the label would be a harder gate than the thing it is a
console for. There is no ``hosted_public_entitled`` read on this path,
deliberately, and a test pins the absence.

No daemon call either, for the same reason there is no tunnel byte in
the takedown switch: the label is cloud state. An offline machine renames
exactly as well as a live one, which is what makes this the one thing a
person can tidy up while the box is off (owner decision, 2026-08-29 —
``nerdit`` locally keeps calling the machine whatever the daemon calls
it, and making the two agree would be a ``node-link/v1`` write path and a
fixture bump for a cosmetic field).

This does not violate D-NC10. That rule governs data *from* the node; a
label the owner authored is the owner's own data *about* their node — the
same category as the column that already exists.

## Path parameters

- `node_id` string, uuid, required

## Request body

- NodeRenameRequest: The owner's label for their own machine — never its address.
  - `display_name` string, required

## Response `200`

Successful Response

- NodeRenameView: The label as it now stands, after normalization. What was *stored*, not what was typed, so the console redraws from the server the way the share row does rather than from its own input: NFC, control stripping and whitespace collapsing all mean the two can differ.
  - `node_id` string, uuid, required
  - `display_name` string, required

## Other responses

- `401`: Unauthorized
- `403`: Forbidden
- `404`: Not Found
- `422`: Unprocessable Content

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/nerdit/apis/nerdit-cloud-web.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/nerdit/apis/nerdit-cloud-web/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/nerdit/apis/nerdit-cloud-web/revisions/06e3b44b58be?raw)