This document discusses how to use a custom transformer in Mule to directly transform an XML payload to JSON. It provides an example of a Mule flow that uses a custom Java transformer class to take an XML file, convert it to a JSON string, and write the output to a new file. The custom transformer uses the Jackson XML and JSON libraries to perform the actual conversion between the two formats. Testing the flow results in the XML payload being successfully transformed to JSON and written out as expected.