Scenario

You want to embed a Merion form — for example, a Refer a Debt form — in your own web application and submit it to the Merion API on behalf of the user. This recipe covers server-side submission from Node.js or a compatible edge runtime (Vercel Edge Functions, Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda).

Before you start

Submit from server-side, not the browser. The public forms endpoint does not require authentication, but server-side submission avoids CORS issues (Merion's CORS policy allows *.merion.com.au origins only — see Getting Started) and gives you a clean place to add your own validation before hitting the Merion API.
Validate on your side too. Merion will return field errors if server-side validation fails, but providing good client-side and server-side validation in your own application means users see faster, friendlier error messages.
Coordinate before volume testing. Merion does not currently offer a sandbox endpoint. Email [email protected] before running automated volume tests.

Step 1 — collect and validate the form data

Use your own form, your own validation. The fields required depend on the form key — see Forms API for the full field reference per key. Validate required fields, email formats, and any business rules before submitting to Merion.

Step 2 — submit to Merion

// TypeScript — Node.js / edge function context
const MERION_API = "https://api.merion.com.au";

async function submitToMerion(
  formKey: string,
  fields: Record<string, string>
): Promise<{ ok: boolean; error?: string }> {
  const res = await fetch(`${ MERION_API }/public/forms/${ formKey }`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({ form: formKey, fields, hp: "" }),
  });

  if (res.ok) {
    return { ok: true };
  }

  const body = await res.json().catch(() => ({}));
  return { ok: false, error: body?.message ?? `HTTP ${ res.status }` };
}

// Usage — refer-a-debt form
const result = await submitToMerion("refer-a-debt", {
  creditor_name: "Acme Pty Ltd",
  creditor_email: "[email protected]",
  creditor_phone: "0412 345 678",
  debtor_name: "Slow Payer Pty Ltd",
  debtor_contact: "[email protected]",
  amount: "12500.00",
  description: "Outstanding invoices INV-001 through INV-004",
});

if (!result.ok) {
  console.error("Submission failed:", result.error);
}

Step 3 — handle the response

On success (result.ok === true): show the user a confirmation message. Do not re-submit. The record is now in Merion's system.
On a 400 or 422 error: surface the result.error message to the user or administrator. Fix the payload — do not retry automatically, as the same error will occur.
On a 500 or 503 error: retry with exponential backoff. See Error Handling for a retry recipe.

Honeypot field

Always include "hp": "" in the payload — an empty string, never a non-empty value. The honeypot field is a spam-prevention mechanism. If the hp value is non-empty, Merion discards the submission silently (returns a success response, but the record is not stored).

If your frontend form includes a visible hp input, ensure it is hidden via CSS and that no autofill or autocomplete populates it. Do not pre-fill it in your server-side code.

Logging

Log the submission attempt (form key, timestamp, your internal reference ID if applicable).
Log the API response status code.
Do not log the full request payload in production — it may contain PII (debtor names, emails, financial amounts). Log only what you need for debugging.
Do not log Bearer tokens if you add authenticated calls later.

Idempotency note

The forms endpoint is not idempotent — submitting the same data twice creates two records. If your workflow might retry on network failure, track submitted requests in your own database (e.g., store a submitted_at timestamp against the user's session) and skip re-submission if the record already exists.

Available form keys

For the full list of available form keys and their required fields, see Forms API. Current keys include: contact, refer-a-debt, request-a-quote, partner-referral, become-a-partner.

Forms Intake Recipe