Program Streams Payload Formats

Program Streams support JSON and protobuf payloads.

JSON

Set:

format = JSON;

The response payload field contains JSON text.

event = json.loads(message.payload)

Use JSON for:

• Initial integration
• Logs and inspection
• Dynamic consumers
• Low event volume

Protobuf

Set:

format = PROTO;

The response payload field contains base64 text for the encoded protobuf message.

import base64 raw = base64.b64decode(message.payload)event = PayloadMessage()event.ParseFromString(raw)

Fetch PayloadMessage and its proto through GetTopicSchema.

Use protobuf for:

• Lower parsing overhead
• Strong field types
• High event volume
• Stable generated clients

Important difference

Enhanced Streams expose payload as protobuf bytes.

Program Streams expose payload as protobuf string.

Only Program Streams PROTO output needs base64 decoding.