Cancel an order

Cancel an order before it is fulfilled — either from your app or after a restaurant intent-to-cancel.

Before you begin

• Order already created in Otter (Create an order)
• Status updates allowed for your app (POST /v1/orders/{orderId}/status)
• Webhooks registered if you need intent-to-cancel events

Steps

1. Create the order with POST /v1/orders (same as the create flow).
2. Cancel from your app (path A): After cancellation succeeds in your system, set status to CANCELED with POST /v1/orders/{orderId}/status.
3. Restaurant-initiated (path B):
4. Otter sends an Intent to cancel order (orders.cancel_order) webhook when a restaurant operator requests cancel.
5. If your channel requires it, attempt cancel on the online delivery / marketplace side.
6. When cancel succeeds, set status to CANCELED with POST /v1/orders/{orderId}/status and echo the webhook's event ID in X-Event-Id.

The cancellation callback contract has no decline state and no public no-response deadline. If cancellation fails, do not acknowledge it as CANCELED; follow the integration-specific reconciliation process agreed during onboarding.

Verify

Cancel a test order both ways (your app and, if available, restaurant intent). Confirm that the status endpoint returns 202 Accepted and that the eventual order state matches. A 202 response confirms queueing only; it is not a downstream completion acknowledgment.

Common failures

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Intent webhook received but order still open	Forgot status update after channel cancel	Call status endpoint with CANCELED
Status update returns 404	Wrong or unknown external order id	Use the same externalIdentifiers.id supplied when the order was created
Status update returns 202, but state has not changed yet	The update is still queued or downstream processing failed	Reconcile the order through the integration-specific process

Next

• Order lifecycle
• Orders overview (send into Otter)