Webhook Payload `chat.transcript` is in reverse order. Retell AI #❓・bug-report

Webhook Payload `chat.transcript` is in reverse or...

julio

01/05/2026, 3:35 PM

Hello! I have set up a webhook from an agent to call a generic endpoint to handle both

call_ended

and

chat_ended

events. The

call.transcript

string property is in the correct order, but the

chat.transcript

string property is in reverse order. e.g. call.transcript

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Agent: Hello. Thank you for calling. How can I help you today?
User: Hey. What are your daily rates?
Agent: Our RV daily rates start at $60.
Agent: Anything else I can help with?
User: No. That's it. Thanks.
Agent: Thanks for calling. Have a wonderful day.

chat.transcript

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Agent: Thank you for reaching out. Have a wonderful day.
User: That's it
Agent: Anything else I can help with?
Agent: We don’t have any dog restrictions.
User: What size/breed of dogs do you allow?
Agent: Hello. How can I help you today?

I'm depending on the

transcript

to pull out action items and the reverse order is confusing the LLM. Is there an option I can check to flip this, or is this a bug? I'm attempting to recreate the conversation from the

transcript_object

in the mean time.

Shehroze -Support @Retell

01/05/2026, 3:38 PM

Hey @julio You can use transcript_object, which preserves message order and roles consistently.

julio

01/05/2026, 3:39 PM

Yep. That's what I'm doing! Thanks for the fast reply. Is there a reason that transcript property is in reverse order?

Shehroze -Support @Retell

01/05/2026, 3:40 PM

chat transcripts are currently returned in reverse order due to how chat messages are stored and streamed internally.

julio

01/05/2026, 3:41 PM

Also, the

transcript_object

in the documentation is documented as

[ [Object], [Object], [Object], [Object] ]

. Is there a way you can give me that actual JSON schema?

julio

01/05/2026, 3:42 PM

Or point me to where it is documented.

julio

01/05/2026, 3:43 PM

Is it this:

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{
  "message_id": "Jabr9TXYYJHfvl6Syypi88rdAHYHmcq6",
  "role": "agent",
  "content": "hi how are you doing?",
  "created_timestamp": 1703302428855
}

I pulled that from message_with_tool_calls from ChatAPI.

Shehroze -Support @Retell

01/05/2026, 3:46 PM

Yes that matches the format of a single item in transcript_object

julio

01/05/2026, 3:46 PM

Thanks for the help!

julio

01/05/2026, 5:40 PM

So it turns out that the

chat_ended

payload doesn't have a

transcript_object

at all. It has a

message_with_tool_calls

. I figured it all out. Thanks again for your help. I would like to bring up a different issue that would have made this significantly easier to deal with: The webhook documentation is very unclear about the expected payloads and what the match in the API documentation. https://docs.retellai.com/features/webhook-overview The same webhook can be used for chat in addition to calls, however the event names are

chat_started

and

chat_ended

. The payloads have a major property difference at the root

chat

call

. The chat entity and the call entity are the same shape as

GET chat

and

GET call

payloads (depending on which event there may or may not be an analysis). There is no

message_object

payload equivalent of

transcript_object

, so you have to filter out the tool calls. Thanks for your time!

Shehroze -Support @Retell

01/05/2026, 5:50 PM

Thanks for the detailed feedback! You’re correct chat and call webhooks have different payloads, and chat_ended uses message_with_tool_calls instead of transcript_object, so filtering tool calls is necessary. It will be maked sure this feedback is passed to the docs team to improve clarity for future users.

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