Webhook for Beginners

Webbooks are basically user defined HTTP callbacks which are triggered by specific events. Whenever that trigger event occurs in the source site, the webhook receives the event, collects the data, and sends it to the URL specified by you in the form of an HTTP request.

Like in Pub/Sub architecture one handler subscribes an event. Once we publish the event the handler gets executed. Similarly in webhook, instead of publishing event we call webhook HTTP POST URL on certain event.

Example would be suppose, you have your Github Repo. Whenever someone star it you want to HTTP post a message to your Discord Server. In this example GitHub will call webhook URL by sending payload with HTTP POST method. You can implement a server to receive the HTTP POST call and send message to Discord. Or you can also use Discord webhook URL to directly use in GitHub and you do not need to write a code, automatically GitHub payload will be displayed in Discord server.

• Learn Mocking Webhook
• Creating local Webhook using express
• Integrate local Webhook with GitHub
• Integrate Twilio serverless function

Visit this read me here as well

Webhook mocking for testing

Create mocked Webhook handler at here https://beeceptor.com/ for testing and playing around. Create Webhook in beeceptor. And use this newly created webhook in your GitHub repo to see how Webhooks are called.

Create Webhook in Discord

Copy the URL and append /github and add this URL in the GitHub Webhook.

Writing our own local server for Webhook

Now we write our own server to post to discord Webhook. Check this project

Run npm start to start your local web server.

Let’s expose local server to internet

ngrock is a npm package that converts your local server to public URL.

Setting up ngrok in local window machine?

ngrok opens up tunnel to local machine. So that your application can be publicly accessible through the tunnel.

Now our local server is running at http://localhost:3000

Lets install ngrok and open this port for internet.

Download ngrok and run the exe.

Add ngrok.exe path in the system environment so that you can access from anywhere.

Creating public URL using ngrok

We will expose local server over internet by getting brand new internet URL. Open powershell run below script to expose localhost:3000 to public internet.

ngrok http 3000

My local server is accessible over internet and I get http and https both URLs available to browse over internet

Next I can visit my URL over internet

Hooking up local server with GitHub

Now in your github you can go and add the Webhook URL that you generated just now. Make sure to append /github on your URL.

Now if you start github repo you will receive the message to your discord channel.

You can visit the Webhook payloads at this address http://localhost:4040/inspect/http from ngrok.

Here is the code so far

Next lets read the Avtar URL from Github payload

When we star/un-star we can read the avtar_url of the user and show that in discord.

How to start your local server in watch mode?

• Install npm i nodemon -g
• Then run nodemon start to start your server in watch mode.

Now you can notice that we are able to post the avatar of the user from github to our discord channel.

const avatarUrl = req.body.sender.avatar_url;

Here is the source code so far

Twilio

Twilio is a serverless solution that can respond to SMS coming to a virtual phone number.

Create a flow in Twilio to speak up when someone calls you.

Record voicemail and send to Webhook

You can record voicemail, convert voice to text

And use Webhook URL to send the transcript.

You can install Twilio-CLI globally to send messages from your local development machine.

npm i -g twilio-cli

Next login to twilio by running twilio login

Run below script

twilio plugins:install @twilio-labs/plugin-serverless

Creating Twilio project

Create project

twilio serverless:init ideacatcher --empty

Run project

twilio serverless:start

Navigate to http://localhost:3000/send-test

Your server is up and running.

Reference

• Webbooks for Beginners - Full Course
• Complete Source code for this blog

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Thanks for reading my article till end. I hope you learned something special today. If you enjoyed this article then please share to your friends and if you have suggestions or thoughts to share with me then please write in the comment box.

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