Our webhook endpoint is dropping events when it returns a 503 Service Unavailable. The Genesys platform retries immediately, which causes cascading failures. We need to implement a dead letter queue pattern to capture these dropped events for later replay. Is there a standard way to configure the webhook retry backoff in the platform settings, or do we need to handle this entirely on our side? We are using the CX-as-Code provider for setup.
Platform doesn’t let you tweak retry backoff. It’s exponential by default. You can’t change that in CX-as-Code or the UI. The 503 triggers a retry storm because the platform thinks the service is temporarily down.
You need to handle the DLQ pattern in your receiving service. Don’t rely on Genesys to hold the data. Here’s how I structure the ingestion endpoint. It captures failed payloads locally before they get lost in the retry loop.
// Express handler for webhook ingestion
import { v4 as uuidv4 } from 'uuid';
import { DLQService } from './services/dlq';
app.post('/webhooks/genesys', async (req, res) => {
const payload = req.body;
try {
await processEvent(payload); // Your business logic
res.status(200).send('OK');
} catch (error) {
// If processing fails, send to DLQ instead of letting Genesys retry indefinitely
await DLQService.enqueue({
id: uuidv4(),
originalPayload: payload,
error: error.message,
timestamp: new Date().toISOString()
});
// Return 200 to Genesys to stop retries, but we've saved the data
res.status(200).send('Queued for retry');
}
});
The key is returning 200 even on failure. This tells Genesys the event was “received” so it stops retrying. Your DLQ service then handles the replay logic. You can use a simple database table with a retry_count column. A separate worker script polls this table, tries the event again, and moves it to a permanent error state if it fails after N attempts.
If you’re using AWS, SQS dead-letter queues work well here. On-prem? Just a SQL table with a scheduled job. Don’t fight the platform’s retry mechanism. Work around it by acknowledging receipt immediately and handling the logic asynchronously.