Update data function

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Workflows

Learn more about the update data function within Knock's notification engine.

An update data function updates properties on the workflow data state as a step in a workflow. Any data set by an update data function is merged into the original trigger data provided on the workflow trigger and made immediately available to all subsequent steps in the workflow.

Configuring data properties

To configure an update data function, you can add key-value pairs in the step editor or use the code editor to input a JSON object directly. Each key represents a property name that will be set on the workflow data, and each value can be either a static value or a Liquid expression.

Each value field is a Liquid-compatible input. This means you can use Liquid variables and control flow to inject variable data, access Knock-controlled workflow state attributes (e.g., recipient), and dynamically compute values per workflow run.

Update data function step in the workflow builder.

Code editor mode for configuring an update data function.

Here are some example configurations:

Key	Value	Description
`full_name`	`{{ data.first_name }} {{ data.last_name }}`	Combines first and last name into a single property
`greeting`	`Hello`	Sets a static greeting value
`item_count`	`{{ data.items \| size }}`	Computes the count of items in an array
`is_premium`	`{{ recipient.plan \| equals: "premium" }}`	Sets a boolean flag based on recipient data
`formatted_date`	`{{ "now" \| date: "%B %d, %Y" }}`	Adds the current date in a specific format

See the Knock template editor reference for detailed information on working with Liquid in your Knock message templates.

Merging data

When an update data function executes, Knock will merge the configured properties into the data you originally passed to the workflow trigger call. Knock uses a shallow-merge strategy where:

Top-level keys from the update data step are merged into the existing workflow run data, adding new keys and replacing existing ones.
Nested objects are replaced entirely rather than deep-merged. If the original data has a nested object and the update data step sets the same key, the entire nested object is overwritten.

The merged data result from an update data function step then becomes the global trigger data for all subsequent steps in the workflow run.

The example below illustrates how this could look in practice.

Debugging update data functions

You can use the workflow debugger to debug your update data function steps. When viewing a workflow run for a specific recipient, you can select the workflow data function step to see the computed data that was merged into your workflow run state.

Viewing update data function step in the workflow run logs.

Frequently asked questions

Use an update data function when you need to transform, compute, or restructure data that is already available in your workflow run. This is ideal for operations like combining fields, setting defaults, or pre-computing Liquid expressions.

Use a fetch function when you need to retrieve additional data from an external service that isn't available in your trigger data. The fetch function makes an HTTP request to your service and merges the response into your workflow data.

In some cases, you might use both: a fetch function to retrieve additional data, followed by an update data function to transform or restructure the combined data for your templates.

You can set a top-level property to an object value, but you cannot directly set deeply nested properties (e.g., metadata.nested.value). If you need to update a nested property, you'll need to set a new value for the entire parent object (metadata), which will replace any existing nested data due to the shallow-merge behavior. See the section on merging data above for an example.

If a Liquid expression in your update data function encounters an error (such as referencing a property that doesn't exist), the step will fail and halt your workflow run. You can use Liquid's default filter (e.g., {{ data.optional_field | default: "fallback" }}) to provide fallback values and avoid errors when data may be missing.

Yes. Since each update data function merges its computed data into the workflow's global data state, subsequent steps (including other update data functions) can reference that data using the data namespace. For example, if a previous step set data.full_name, a later step can reference it as {{ data.full_name }}.