Genesys Cloud Webhook Payload Parsing in Node.js Lambda - Missing 'data' key

We’ve set up a webhook in Genesys Cloud to push conversation.update events to our internal Node.js 18 Lambda function. The goal is simple: extract the participant state changes and update a local database.

The issue is that the event payload structure seems inconsistent or I’m missing something obvious about how the Lambda handler receives the POST body. When I log the raw event object inside the handler, the structure doesn’t match the standard Genesys webhook documentation examples I’ve seen online. The body field is a string, not a parsed JSON object, which I expected AWS Lambda to handle automatically for API Gateway triggers, but this is a direct webhook target.

Here’s the relevant from index.js:

exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
 console.log('Raw event:', JSON.stringify(event));
 
 // Attempting to parse body
 let body;
 try {
 body = typeof event.body === 'string' ? JSON.parse(event.body) : event.body;
 } catch (e) {
 console.error('Parse error:', e);
 return { statusCode: 400, body: 'Invalid JSON' };
 }

 console.log('Parsed body:', JSON.stringify(body));

 if (!body.data) {
 console.log('No data key found in payload');
 return { statusCode: 200, body: 'OK' };
 }

 // Process data...
};

The logs show the body is parsed correctly, but the data property is always undefined. The JSON structure looks like this in the logs:

{
 "id": "abc-123",
 "type": "conversation.update",
 "timestamp": "2023-10-27T10:00:00Z",
 "payload": {
 "id": "call-xyz",
 "participants": [...]
 }
}

Notice it’s payload, not data. The documentation often refers to the inner object as data in generic event examples, but the actual Genesys webhook sends it under payload.

Environment details:

  • Runtime: Node.js 18.x
  • Trigger: Genesys Cloud Webhook (POST)
  • Auth: Basic Auth header present in event.headers
  • Status: Returning 200 OK to Genesys, so the webhook isn’t retrying

Am I misreading the payload structure? Or is there a configuration in Genesys Cloud that changes the key name from payload to data? I’ve checked the webhook settings in Admin > Integrations > Webhooks, but I don’t see a toggle for payload format.

Also, should I be validating the signature header X-Genesys-Signature manually in the Lambda, or does the platform handle that before the request hits my function? I see the header in the logs, but I’m not sure what the expected hash algorithm is.