Webhook Integration

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Implement robust webhook systems for event-driven architectures, enabling real-time communication between services and third-party integrations.

When to Use

• Third-party service integrations (Stripe, GitHub, Shopify)
• Event notification systems
• Real-time data synchronization
• Automated workflow triggers
• Payment processing callbacks
• CI/CD pipeline notifications
• User activity tracking
• Microservices communication

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

import crypto from "crypto";
import axios from "axios";

interface WebhookEvent {
  id: string;
  type: string;
  timestamp: number;
  data: any;
}

interface WebhookEndpoint {
  url: string;
  secret: string;
  events: string[];
  active: boolean;
}

interface DeliveryAttempt {
  attemptNumber: number;
  timestamp: number;
  statusCode?: number;
  error?: string;
  duration: number;
}

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Webhook Sender (TypeScript)	Webhook Sender (TypeScript)
Webhook Receiver (Express)	Webhook Receiver (Express)
Webhook Queue with Bull	Webhook Queue with Bull
Webhook Testing Utilities	Webhook Testing Utilities

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Use HMAC signatures for verification
• Implement idempotency with event IDs
• Return 200 OK quickly, process asynchronously
• Implement exponential backoff for retries
• Include timestamp to prevent replay attacks
• Use queue systems for reliable delivery
• Log all delivery attempts
• Provide webhook testing tools
• Document webhook payload schemas
• Implement webhook management UI
• Allow filtering by event types
• Support webhook versioning

❌ DON'T

• Send sensitive data in webhooks
• Skip signature verification
• Block responses with heavy processing
• Retry indefinitely
• Expose internal error details
• Send webhooks to localhost (in production)
• Forget timeout handling
• Skip rate limiting