Figma Weave 401 Unauthorized Error: How to Fix

A 401 Unauthorized error in Figma Weave indicates that the API gateway or authentication server has rejected your credentials. Unlike a 403 Forbidden error—which means your credentials are valid but your account lacks access to a specific resource—a 401 error means your authentication token is missing, expired, formatted incorrectly, or completely unrecognized by the server.

This guide provides a step-by-step diagnostic workflow to resolve authentication failures in Figma Weave integrations, API scripts, and SDK configurations.

1. Inspect the Authorization Header Syntax

When writing custom scripts or interacting directly with the Figma Weave REST endpoints, formatting errors in HTTP request headers are the most common cause of 401 errors.

1. Open your code editor or API client (such as Postman or Insomnia).
2. Locate your request headers. Verify that the key name is exactly Authorization.
3. Check the value of the header. It must start with the prefix Bearer followed by a single space, and then your exact token string.
4. Ensure you have not accidentally wrapped the token in quotes or bracket notation inside the header value.

Incorrect format example: `http Authorization: Figma_Weave_Token_xyz123 `

Correct format example: `http Authorization: Bearer Figma_Weave_Token_xyz123 `

If you are using a third-party wrapper library or SDK, inspect its client configuration. Some SDKs prepend Bearer automatically, meaning that passing Bearer <token> to your initialization config will result in a double-prefix (Bearer Bearer <token>), triggering a 401 error.

2. Clear Local SDK and CLI Credential Caches

The Figma Weave CLI and local SDK environments frequently cache active tokens locally to minimize API roundtrips. If you have recently rotated your key, updated your password, or had your session revoked, the SDK may still be trying to use expired local credentials.

1. Stop your local development server or application build process. 2. Locate the local configuration directories on your system. - macOS/Linux: Check for config files in ~/.config/figma-weave/ or ~/.weave/. - Windows: Check %USERPROFILE%\.config\figma-weave\. 3. Delete any files named config.json, .credentials, or .token within these folders. 4. If using a Node-based environment, clear your package runner cache: `bash npm run clear-cache ` 5. Run your CLI's sign-in command to force a new, authenticated handshake: `bash weave login --force `

3. Troubleshoot Environment Variable Loading

If your local development environment works fine but your CI/CD pipeline, Docker container, or cloud deployment fails with a 401 error, the issue is almost always a misconfigured environment variable.

1. Open your local .env, .env.local, or deployment environment settings. 2. Verify that the variable name matches exactly what your code expects (e.g., FIGMA_WEAVE_API_KEY vs. WEAVE_API_KEY). 3. Check for syntax issues. Ensure there are no spaces on either side of the equals sign: `bash # Correct FIGMA_WEAVE_API_KEY=your_token_value_here

Incorrect FIGMA_WEAVE_API_KEY = "your_token_value_here" ``` 4. Some cloud providers truncate environment variable values if they exceed a specific character limit or contain special characters. Print the length of the string to your application log to verify that the loaded variable matches the original length of the token.

4. Verify Token Validity in the Developer Portal

API keys and personal access tokens (PATs) can become invalid due to manual revocation, reaching an expiration limit, or workspace-level administrative changes.

1. Log into your Figma account and navigate to your Account Settings > Developer section.
2. Check the list of active Weave integrations and personal access tokens.
3. Verify the creation date and expiration date of the token you are using. If the token has expired, you must generate a new token. Figma Weave does not support "un-expiring" old keys.
4. If your organization recently enforced Single Sign-On (SSO) or changed identity providers (IdP), manual developer tokens may have been automatically deactivated. Generate a new token under your newly authenticated SSO profile.

When to Escalate

If your token works in a simple raw command-line request (e.g., curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" https://api.figma.com/v1/weave/status) but consistently fails with a 401 error inside your application framework, your corporate network firewall or reverse proxy might be stripping out the authorization header before the request reaches the endpoint.

If you have verified that headers are passing uninhibited and generating a brand-new token still results in a 401 error, contact your Figma Enterprise Administrator to check if your account has been temporarily suspended from API access due to security policy violations.