Invalid character response using requests in Python

[dhimmel]

I'm really excited to message myself via MiddleManBot to alert me when trailhead spots open for the John Muir Trail.

I'm calling the public bot in python as follows:

url = "https://middleman.ferdinand-muetsch.de/api/messages"
payload = {
    'recipient_token': my_token,
    'text': my_text,
    'origin': my_app,
}
import requests
response = requests.post(url, data=payload)

I'm getting a response with status code 400, whose text is:

invalid character 'r' looking for beginning of value

Any idea what the issue could be?

[muety]

Hey Daniel, I'm glad my bot can help you! I guess what you described is not an issue with the bot itself. Rather you probably need to tell requests that your payload is JSON-encoded. Try response = requests.post(url, json=payload). If it doesn't work, get back to me.

[dhimmel]

json=payload did the trick! Awesome.