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Account Already Bound

URI: https://docs.ankatech.co/errors/federated-link-target-already-bound
HTTP Status: 409 Conflict

When you see this

The account you named already carries a federated identity. Re-keying a bound account from one external subject to another in a single step is a silent takeover whose audit trail reads as routine administration, so the platform refuses it and requires the two halves to be separate, deliberate acts.

The refusal is raised on the declare leg of federated account linking, POST /api/v3/admin/tenants/{tenantId}/users/{userId}/federated-link-intent. Nothing was written: no intent exists, no notification was sent, and the target account is unchanged.

Common Causes

  • The account was bound to a federated identity earlier and the binding is still in place.
  • A second administrator bound the account between the moment the console rendered and the moment the request was submitted.

Response Example

{
  "type": "https://docs.ankatech.co/errors/federated-link-target-already-bound",
  "title": "Account Already Bound",
  "status": 409,
  "detail": "This account is already bound to a federated identity. Unlink it before declaring a new link intent.",
  "instance": "/api/v3/admin/tenants/2f1c9d84-6b2e-4d3a-9f57-0a1b2c3d4e5f/users/8c4f1a02-77d5-4e19-b3ac-51e6d9f0a742/federated-link-intent",
  "timestamp": 1730000000,
  "extensions": {
    "requestId": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000"
  }
}

Content-Type: application/problem+json — the response follows RFC 9457 Problem Details. This is an Admin API body, so the correlation identifier is extensions.requestId; see Error Index & Overview.

How to Resolve

  1. Read the account's current federated binding in the console before deciding.
  2. If the existing binding is the wrong one, unlink it first. Unlinking also ends the previous holder's live sessions, which is the property that makes the two-step path safe.
  3. Declare the new link intent once the account carries no binding.

For full schema definitions, examples, and interactive testing, see the Developer Hub Reference.