In response to reception of an electronic data interchange (EDI) instance document, a determination is made that a hierarchical EDI reception processing rule sequence, useable to partition encoded hierarchical envelopes of the EDI instance document and to invoke processing of payload data packaged within the encoded hierarchical envelopes, has not been configured. Through analysis of content of the EDI instance document, an EDI standard and syntax formatting of the encoded hierarchical envelopes that package the payload data within the EDI instance document are determined. An EDI reception processing sequence definition that encodes the hierarchical EDI reception processing rule sequence is configured that is usable to partition the encoded hierarchical envelopes of the EDI instance document and to invoke the processing of the payload data packaged within the encoded hierarchical envelopes.