We’ve got a Python test suite running against our Cognigy.AI flows to catch regressions before they hit the ServiceNow webhook handlers. The script hits the Dialog API to execute parameterized inputs against a specific model version. Everything looks green on the network side, but the assertion logic is blowing up because the action objects are missing from the response payload even though the flow definitely has them configured.
Here’s the relevant chunk of the test runner:
response = requests.post(f"{base_url}/api/v2/dialogs/{dialog_id}/execute",
json={"input": {"text": user_input}, "context": test_context},
headers=auth_header)
payload = response.json()
# Checking for the specific action trigger we expect
assert "actions" in payload, f"Missing actions in response for input: {user_input}"
expected_action = "create_incident_in_snow"
found = any(a.get("type") == expected_action for a in payload.get("actions", []))
assert found, f"Expected action '{expected_action}' not found in payload"
The response comes back with a 200 OK. The JSON structure has the messages array populated correctly with the bot’s reply text. Just no actions array at all. We’ve tried passing the modelVersionId in the query params, and even in the body, but the behavior is identical.
Tried a few things already:
Verified the model version in the UI has the action trigger enabled and published.
Checked the API key scopes; it has full dialog execution permissions.
Ran the same input manually in the Cognigy test console and the action fires instantly there.
Added trace logging to dump the raw response headers and body. Nothing suspicious in the headers.
The coverage report generation part of the script is also stalling because it relies on the action triggers to mark branches as tested. If the actions aren’t showing up in the API response, the coverage calculation thinks we have zero coverage.
Could be a versioning issue where the API defaults to a draft state that doesn’t include actions? Or maybe there’s a flag needed in the execute payload to force action evaluation?
Last thing we noticed was the response time is under 200ms. Feels too fast for the action to actually resolve. Bot text is there though.
You’re probably hitting the default payload compression on the Dialog endpoint. The /api/v1/dialog/execute route strips action triggers from the JSON response unless you explicitly toggle the return flags in the request body. Python’s requests library doesn’t inject those by default, so your test suite gets a clean 200 with an empty actions array.
Try this exact payload shape before you fire the POST:
The returnActions: true flag forces the engine to serialize the action objects. You’ll also want to verify the response structure maps to data.actions instead of just actions. When you pipe this through PureCloudPlatformClientV2, the DFO handler expects the payload to match the /api/v2/digital/conversations/messages schema, otherwise it drops the object during the transform. Requires oauth2:client_credentials scope if you’re validating against the staging tenant directly. Honestly, the SDK docs skip this part. Takes a minute to notice. Check your session context variables next.
Sorry for the newbie question. The flag above fixes the missing data, but it breaks the runner. The API returns the whole conversation tree when you toggle that switch. It’s like opening a dam instead of a tap. The Python script drowns in the JSON.
Step one: limit the response size. Step two: mock the large payloads. The test suite isn’t built for heavy lifting.
The staging server crashed on the same issue. The logs cut off mid-stream. Here is the fragment.
ERROR: json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Unexpected end of JSON input ...
The buffer fills up. The process gets killed. Adjust the memory cap. Or the tests fail silently.
The returnActions boolean sorted the payload shape for our zapier-cli polling trigger. Here’s the exact JSON structure that stops the buffer overflow while keeping the conversation:read scope intact for the downstream /api/v2/users/me validation using PureCloudPlatformClientV2:
The maxDepth tweak in the suggestion above works, but it’s a trap. Latency spikes in the runner kill the run. A/B tests on routing logic with heavy payloads showed SLA drops when JSON parsing crept past 200ms.