🐛 Bug Report: Notification item payload is undefined in React Native (blocks dynamic deep linking)

[AdzeB]

📜 Description

When fetching notifications using the Novu React Native SDK, each notification item’s payload (or data body) is undefined. Because of this, I cannot access the custom data required for dynamic / custom deep linking in my app.

This makes it impossible to implement navigation logic based on the payload (e.g., screen, entityId, etc.) that is sent with the notification from Novu.

Environment:

• React Native (Expo managed)

  • "expo": "54.0.23"

  • "react-native": "0.81.5"

• Novu SDK:

  • "@novu/react-native": "^3.10.1"

👟 Reproduction steps

• Set up Novu SaaS with a template that includes a JSON payload, for example:

	{
	  "screen": "OrderDetails",
	  "orderId": "12345"
	}

• In a React Native / Expo app, initialize Novu:

import React from 'react';
import { NovuProvider } from '@novu/react-native';

export default function App() {
  return (
    <NovuProvider
      applicationIdentifier="<YOUR_APP_ID>"
      subscriberId="<YOUR_SUBSCRIBER_ID>"
    >
      <NotificationListScreen />
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}

• Use the Novu hooks / methods to fetch notifications (example):

import React from 'react';
import { Text, View, FlatList } from 'react-native';
import { useNotifications } from '@novu/react-native';

export function NotificationListScreen() {
  const { data, isLoading, error } = useNotifications();

  if (isLoading) return <Text>Loading…</Text>;
  if (error) return <Text>Error: {String(error)}</Text>;

  return (
    <FlatList
      data={data?.notifications ?? []}
      keyExtractor={(item) => item._id}
      renderItem={({ item }) => (
        <View>
          <Text>Subject: {item?.subject}</Text>
          <Text>Payload: {JSON.stringify(item?.payload)}</Text>
        </View>
      )}
    />
  );
}

• Trigger a notification from Novu that includes the JSON payload in the template.

• Observe the logged item.datafor each notification item.

👍 Expected behavior

• Each notification item should expose the payload/body that was sent from Novu (e.g. a payload or data field).

• The payload should contain the custom fields defined in the template (e.g. screen, orderId, etc.).

👎 Actual Behavior with Screenshots

• item.payload (or equivalent field for the payload body) is undefined for every notification item.

• Only basic information (like subject, content, etc.) is available.

Novu version

Novu SaaS

npm version

NA

node version

v22.14.0

📃 Provide any additional context for the Bug.

No response

👀 Have you spent some time to check if this bug has been raised before?

• I checked and didn't find a similar issue

🏢 Have you read the Contributing Guidelines?

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines

Are you willing to submit PR?

None

[linear]

NV-6901

[jainpawan21]

@AdzeB

Did you get a chance to use data object as mentioned in this documentation
https://docs.novu.co/platform/inbox/configuration/data-object

[AdzeB]

Hi @jainpawan21 I am not using the inbox component but rather the hooks and headless Js components so I am under the assumption I should extend the notifications type from novu and have the payload items there. Something like this:

type NotificationReturn = {
  notifications: {
    id: string;
    content: string;
    createdAt: Date;
    read: boolean;
    seen: boolean;
    orderId: string; // payload item value here??
    // ... other notification fields
  }[];
  hasMore: boolean;
  isLoading: boolean;
  error: Error | null;
  loadMore: () => void;
  refetch: () => void;
};