Verify the response

When the captcha challenge is completed by the user, the user's browser receives a piece of text that proves that they completed the challenge. This proof is called the response.

The widget embeds this response in the form which is submitted to your server in a field called frc-captcha-response.

Your server needs to talk to Friendly Captcha's API to make sure the response is valid. Without this verification there is no protection.

info

If you are using the Javascript SDK, you can also embed the response in any other action you want to protect.

Verifying the solution (siteverify)

Create an API key

You will need an API key to prove it's you, you can create one on the API Keys page in the dashboard.

Make the siteverify request

To verify the CAPTCHA solution, make a POST request to https://global.frcapi.com/api/v2/siteverify with the following parameters:

POST Parameter	Type	Description
response	string	The response value that the user submitted in the frc-captcha-response field.
sitekey	string	Optional: the sitekey that you want to make sure the puzzle was generated from.

You can pass these parameters in a JSON body or as formdata.

To authenticate the request, make the request with the following header:

Header	Description
X-API-Key	The API key you created in the previous step.

The siteverify response

The response will tell you whether the captcha response is valid, meaning the captcha was solved succesfully.

The response body is a JSON object which has a success field that tells you whether the response was valid or not.

Example success=true verification

{
  "success": true,
  "data": { 
    "challenge": {
        "timestamp": 1685098040, // Timestamp when the captcha challenge was completed.
        "origin": "example.com" // Origin where the challenge happened. This can be empty if unknown.
    }
  }
}

Example success=false response

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "error_code": "bad_request", // Error code, see the table below for possible values
    "detail": "..." // A textual description of what went wrong.
  },
}

Below is a list of possible values for error_code. If you are seeing status code 400 or 401 your server code is probably not configured correctly.

Error code	Status	Description
auth_required	401	You forgot to set the X-API-Key header.
auth_invalid	401	The API key you provided was invalid.
sitekey_invalid	400	The sitekey in your request is invalid.
response_missing	400	You forgot to add the response parameter.
response_invalid	200	The response you provided was invalid (perhaps the user tried to work around the captcha).
response_timeout	200	The response has expired.
response_duplicate	200	The response has already been used.
bad_request	400	Something else is wrong with your request, e.g. your request body is empty.

Warning

Status code 200 does not mean the solution was valid. It means the verification was performed succesfully. Use the success field.

Why can a solution be invalid?

A solution can be invalid for a number of reasons, perhaps the user submitted before the captcha widget was finished, or they are trying to use a response more than once.

The first case can be prevented by disabling the submit button until the CAPTCHA has been completed succesfully.

tip

What to do when siteverify doesn't work

If you receive a response code other than 200 in production, you should probably accept the user's response despite not having been able to verify it.

Maybe your server is misconfigured or the Friendly Captcha servers are down. While we try to make sure that never happens, it is a good idea to assume one day disaster will strike.

It is better to temporarily accept bots or spam than to reject all requests. Do remember to send an alert to yourself!

API Reference

For more thorough docs, please see the API Reference.