hcengineering/platform · error

'data' is missing

Error message

'data' is missing

What it means

The pod-notification push handler responds HTTP 400 with { err: "'data' is missing" } when req.body.data is undefined. The handler builds a PushData from body.data and needs it to compose the web-push notification payload, so it rejects the request before looking at subscriptions.

Source

Thrown at services/notification/pod-notification/src/main.ts:69

      if (token !== config.AuthToken) {
        res.status(401).send({ err: 'Invalid auth token' })
        return false
      }
    }
    return true
  }

  const endpoints: Endpoint[] = [
    {
      endpoint: '/web-push',
      type: 'post',
      handler: async (req, res) => {
        if (!checkAuth(req, res)) {
          return
        }
        const data: PushData | undefined = req.body?.data
        if (data === undefined) {
          res.status(400).send({ err: "'data' is missing" })
          return
        }
        const subscriptions: PushSubscription[] | undefined = req.body?.subscriptions
        if (subscriptions === undefined) {
          res.status(400).send({ err: "'subscriptions' is missing" })
          return
        }
        if (!webpushInitDone) {
          res.json({ result: [] }).end()
          return
        }

        const result = await sendPushToSubscription(ctx, subscriptions, data)
        res.json({ result }).end()
      }
    }
  ]

View on GitHub (pinned to 63e28dc964)

Solutions

  1. Include a valid 'data' object in the JSON body: {"data":{...},"subscriptions":[...]}.
  2. Set Content-Type: application/json and confirm the body is not empty after proxies/gateways.
  3. Match the PushData shape expected by the service (check its type definition) rather than sending arbitrary fields.
  4. Validate the payload client-side before sending (see type guard) to fail fast with a clearer message.

Example fix

// before
post(pushUrl, { subscriptions })
// after
post(pushUrl, { data: { title: 'Hi', body: 'Hello' }, subscriptions })
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function hasPushData(body: unknown): boolean {
  const d = (body as any)?.data
  return d !== undefined && d !== null && typeof d === 'object'
}
if (!hasPushData(payload)) throw new Error("push request requires a 'data' object")

Type guard

function hasPushData(b: unknown): b is { data: object; subscriptions: unknown[] } {
  const d = (b as any)?.data
  return typeof d === 'object' && d !== null
}

Try / catch

const res = await fetch(pushUrl, opts)
if (res.status === 400) {
  const { err } = await res.json()
  if (err?.includes("'data' is missing")) throw new Error('push payload must include data')
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: POST to the push endpoint (passing checkAuth) with a body lacking the 'data' object, a non-JSON body, or data nested one level too deep (e.g. { payload: { data } } instead of { data }).

Common situations: Wrong Content-Type so express.json() never populates req.body; renaming the field in the client ('notification', 'payload', 'message') while the service expects 'data'; older clients built for a schema where data was optional; gateway stripping the body on forwarded POSTs.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hcengineering/platform@63e28dc964 (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a327fa2701d2e93a. Report an issue: GitHub.