---
title: "Change one contact, clearing a field by sending null"
method: PATCH
path: "/api/v1/contacts/{contact_id}"
tags: ["contacts"]
---

# Change one contact, clearing a field by sending null

`PATCH /api/v1/contacts/{contact_id}`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://api.app.tightly.io`
- URL: `https://api.app.tightly.io/api/v1/contacts/{contact_id}`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

Changes one contact and answers it whole. Only the fields in the body move: a field left out is untouched, and a field sent null is cleared. The two are different, which is why this is a PATCH and not a PUT.

`preferred_contact_method` is `EMAIL` or `PHONE`, and the contact must still carry the field it names once the change lands. Clearing the email of a contact who prefers email is refused 400, and so is clearing the phone of one who prefers phone; send the new method in the same body to move them both at once.

`supplier_id` re-attaches the contact to a supplier. A supplier this organisation does not have fails the call. An email another contact already has is refused 400.

`contact_id` is a whole number. An id no contact has does not answer 404 here. It fails as a server error, so read the contact first when the id did not come from a Tightly read.

Scope: `suppliers:write`, which includes `suppliers:read`.

## Path parameters

- `contact_id` string, required

## Headers

- `Tightly-Version` string
- `Idempotency-Key` string

## Request body

- UpdateContactRequest
  - `city` string, nullable
  - `country` string, nullable
  - `department` string, nullable
  - `description` string, nullable
  - `email` string, email, nullable
  - `name` string
  - `phone` string, nullable
  - `preferred_contact_method` string
  - `role` string, nullable
  - `supplier_id` string, nullable

## Response `200`

The contact as it now stands.

- UpdateContactResponse
  - `data` union
    - ContactPayload
      - `city` string, nullable
      - `country` string, nullable
      - `department` string, nullable
      - `description` string, nullable
      - `email` string, nullable
      - `id` string, required
      - `is_primary_contact` boolean, nullable
      - `name` string, nullable
      - `phone` string, nullable
      - `preferred_contact_method` string, nullable
      - `role` string, nullable
      - `supplier_id` string, nullable
      - `supplier_name` string, nullable
    - object, nullable
  - `message` ContactsApiMessage
    - `desc` string
    - `service` string
    - `severity` 'SUCCESS' | 'INFO' | 'ERROR' | 'WARNING'

## Other responses

- `400`: The preferred method would name a field the contact no longer carries, or the email belongs to another contact.
- `401`: No usable key: malformed, unknown, revoked, expired or stopped. One refusal covers all five, telling a caller which is which maps the surface for them. A request with no Authorization header at all is refused 400 before any key is looked for.
- `403`: The key may not reach this operation. `scope_missing` when the key does not hold Suppliers; `ip_not_allowed` when the caller's address is outside the key's allowlist. There is no `organization_mismatch` on this resource: no supplier or contact route names an organisation in its path, so there is nothing for a key to disagree with.
- `429`: The key has spent its allowance for this minute. 600 reads and 120 writes a minute, counted per key, refused calls included. `Retry-After` says how long to wait.
- `503`: The database is briefly out of reach, which is what a failover or a full connection pool looks like from outside. Wait the seconds `Retry-After` names and send the request again. A read is safe to repeat. A write is not, because the connection was lost in the middle of it, so read the object back before sending it a second time. Branch on the status rather than on `code`, which is `POSTGRES_UNAVAILABLE` from one of the two seams that raise this and `SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE` from the other.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/tightly/apis/tightly-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/tightly/apis/tightly-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/tightly/apis/tightly-api/revisions/199f7eb35afb?raw)