What Is a Webhook? A Developer's Guide to Understanding and Debugging Webhooks

What Is a Webhook? A Developer's Guide to Understanding and Debugging Webhooks If you have integrated with any modern API -- Stripe, GitHub, Shopify, Twilio, Slack -- you have encountered webhooks. They are one of those concepts that seems simple on the surface but causes real headaches when something goes wrong. This guide explains what webhooks are, how they work, and (more importantly) how to debug them when they break. What Is a Webhook? A webhook is an HTTP request that a service sends to your server when something happens. That is it. There is no special protocol, no binary format, no persistent connection. A webhook is a plain HTTP POST request with a JSON body, sent from one server to another. The difference between a webhook and a normal API call is direction . With a normal API, your code calls the service. With a webhook, the service calls your code. Polling vs. Webhooks Without webhooks, you would need to repeatedly ask a service "did anything change?" This is called pollin