diff --git a/internal/errkind/errkind.go b/internal/errkind/errkind.go
index 74e9099..f1d719d 100644
--- a/internal/errkind/errkind.go
+++ b/internal/errkind/errkind.go
@@ -17,13 +17,20 @@ import (
 // HTTPStatuser is implemented by errors that are a non-2xx answer from a service.
 type HTTPStatuser interface{ HTTPStatus() int }
 
-// Of is the kind of err: "timeout", "canceled", "http_<code>", "network", or "error".
+// SQLStater is implemented by database errors that carry a SQLSTATE (pgx's PgError does).
+// The five-character code is a fixed vocabulary; the error's message is not: Postgres quotes
+// the offending value, which for a transcript row is transcript text.
+type SQLStater interface{ SQLState() string }
+
+// Of is the kind of err: "timeout", "canceled", "http_<code>", "sql_<state>", "network",
+// or "error".
 // It is empty for nil.
 func Of(err error) string {
 	if err == nil {
 		return ""
 	}
 	var hs HTTPStatuser
+	var ss SQLStater
 	var ne net.Error
 	switch {
 	case errors.Is(err, context.DeadlineExceeded):
@@ -32,6 +39,8 @@ func Of(err error) string {
 		return "canceled"
 	case errors.As(err, &hs):
 		return fmt.Sprintf("http_%d", hs.HTTPStatus())
+	case errors.As(err, &ss) && ss.SQLState() != "":
+		return "sql_" + ss.SQLState()
 	case errors.As(err, &ne):
 		if ne.Timeout() {
 			return "timeout"