There’s a difference when you have created a custom API manually versus creates the API via STRAPI. My problem was that I installed a BK from other DB because the table has 500+ fields, so manually I had to duplicated and modify a content-type, but lifecycles doesn’t worked. So, I grab only 15 fields and I had to do all the process via STRAPI and when I check the STRAPI files was all the same as my manually configuration. I don’t know what’s the difference between the manually creation and the STRAPI Automation creation files, but after that I was able to send emails in the afterUpdate() method.
I have my lifecyles.js file into the src/api/myapi/content-types/myapi/lifecycles.js