18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise sending the XML-encoded payload according to an industrial protocol.
16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause an industrial automation device including a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising: receiving a request for data stored within an industrial automation device, wherein the request includes an attribute indicating to provide a description of a schema of the data; detecting the attribute appended to the request; generating a binary bit stream comprising the data in response to the receiving the request; retrieving a text string describing the schema of the data in response to the detecting the attribute; appending the text string to the binary bit stream; encoding the binary bit stream and the appended text string into an extensible markup language (XML)-encoded payload; and sending the XML-encoded payload to an initiator of the request.