diff --git a/src/utils/proxy/validate-widget-data.test.js b/src/utils/proxy/validate-widget-data.test.js
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..307b5fd5b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/utils/proxy/validate-widget-data.test.js
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+import { describe, expect, it, vi } from "vitest";
+
+const { loggerError } = vi.hoisted(() => ({
+  loggerError: vi.fn(),
+}));
+
+vi.mock("utils/logger", () => ({
+  default: () => ({
+    error: loggerError,
+  }),
+}));
+
+vi.mock("widgets/widgets", () => ({
+  default: {
+    test: {
+      mappings: {
+        foo: {
+          endpoint: "foo",
+          validate: ["a", "b"],
+        },
+      },
+    },
+  },
+}));
+
+import validateWidgetData from "./validate-widget-data";
+
+describe("utils/proxy/validate-widget-data", () => {
+  it("returns false when buffer JSON cannot be parsed", () => {
+    expect(validateWidgetData({ type: "test" }, "foo", Buffer.from("not json"))).toBe(false);
+    expect(loggerError).toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+
+  it("retries parsing after stripping whitespace (e.g. vertical tab) and validates required keys", () => {
+    // JSON.parse allows only a subset of whitespace; vertical tab triggers a parse error.
+    const data = Buffer.from(`{\u000B"a": 1, "b": 2}`);
+    expect(validateWidgetData({ type: "test" }, "foo", data)).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it("returns false when required validate keys are missing", () => {
+    expect(validateWidgetData({ type: "test" }, "foo", Buffer.from(JSON.stringify({ a: 1 })))).toBe(false);
+    expect(loggerError).toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+});