# Can't get ctx.payload.hits.hits.index.fields.fieldname to work
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** elastic-stack-alerting
**Created:** [July 13, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471 "2015-07-13T18:52:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@crayy8](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/crayy8)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/1 "2015-07-13T18:52:04Z")
Hi,
I am trying to get some data from the returned query results into my web hook action but I cant get it to work. The bellow is a simple example I came up with to test out what I wanted to do. ctx.payload.hits.hits.0.fields.message should be returning a hostname to me but it returns nothing.
I have tried hardcoding the hostname in place of the ctx..payload... so I know everything reaches my api fine. What am I doing wrong?
```
curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/_watcher/watch/log_error_watch' -d '{
"trigger" : { "schedule" : { "interval" : "10s" } },
"input" : {
"search" : {
"request" : {
"indices" : ["logstash-*"],
"body" : {
"query" : {
"match" : { "message": "WIN7-64-VM" }
}
}
}
}
},
"condition" : {
"compare" : { "ctx.payload.hits.total" : { "gt" : 0 }}
},
"actions" : {
"my_webhook": {
"webhook": {
"method": "POST",
"host": "myhostname",
"port": 8080,
"path": "/myapp/api",
"headers" : {
"Content-Type": "application/json",
"Accept": "application/json"
},
"body": "{ \"hostName\": \"{{ctx.payload.hits.hits.0.fields.message}}\", \"userId\": \"test\"}"
}
}
}
}'
```
---
### Author:  [@mvg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mvg)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2015, 9:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/2 "2015-07-14T09:24:17Z")
I think you need to use the following instead:
ctx.payload.hits.hits.0.\_source.message
Unless you specifically ask the \_search api to include stored fields in each hit, fields will be empty. By default the \_search api does return the source of a hit as was provided during indexing.
---
### Author:  [@crayy8](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/crayy8)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/3 "2015-07-14T13:04:49Z")
You are correct, the recommendation you made works. Thanks so much Martijn!
---
### Author:  [@chromechris](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/chromechris)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/4 "2016-10-28T17:37:28Z")
Hey @mvg , this also worked for me. Is there any in depth documentation for features like this? How do you come to these conclusions? Thanks in advance, Chrome.
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2016, 7:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/5 "2016-10-31T07:03:53Z")
Hey,
Netx time, can you open a new thread for those questions, please. Reviving threads that are almost 1.5 years old might become off-topic really quick.
What Martijn did here, was just checking out the JSON format of the search response and walking through it by using a dot as a field separator.
The syntax above is mustache, which is documented in Elasticsearch core in [search templates](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-template.html#_converting_parameters_to_json). You might also want to check out [the official mustache docs](http://mustache.github.io/mustache.5.html).
If you have more concrete questions, feel free to ask!
--Alex
---
### Author:  [@chromechris](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/chromechris)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/6 "2016-11-14T20:33:57Z")
Thanks @spinscale . I will open a new thread next time if the thread I referencing is old to ask questions.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cant-get-ctx-payload-hits-hits-index-fields-fieldname-to-work/25471/7 "2017-07-06T13:42:08Z")