This is a question I use when interviewing devs for writing REST API. The answer is either way, and it depends on the tooling you are using. If you are relyin

This is a question I use when interviewing devs for writing REST API. The answer is either way, and it depends on the tooling you are using. If you are relying on a client library that doesn't handle HTTP errors in the way you want, then you return a 200 - OK {"error": "bad request"}. If the client library does what you want, then returning a limited selection of 4xx errors is very useful for letting the client know what happened quickly and easily. Personally, I default to using the HTTP error codes. But I know that some really large companies don't agree, and always return a 200 OK to any valid request.