418 I'm a teapot
An intentionally humorous status from the 1998 Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol April Fools' RFC — a teapot cannot brew coffee. A beloved Easter egg, not for production.
What it means
418 I'm a teapot comes from RFC 2324 (HTCPCP), a joke specification in which a teapot asked to brew coffee refuses with this code. It was never meant for real HTTP, but frameworks keep it as an Easter egg and some services use it playfully for blocked or bot traffic.
Why it matters
- It is a piece of web culture — and a reminder that status codes are an extensible, human-designed vocabulary.
Common mistakes
- Using 418 for real error signalling that clients must interpret programmatically.
How WebInspect checks this
- WebInspect reports whatever status a server returns, including novelty codes like 418.