WEBHOOKS
Webhooks are ways for a web application and external service to send real-time notification to one or more applications. They are automated HTTP requests, triggered when specific events such as comments being posted to a blog, occurs in a source system and sent to a destination system, sometimes with a payload of data.
The concept of webhooks consists of two parties:
The sender:- The application that is notifying another system about an event. It gathers important data about the event and packages it in a payload, then initiates an HTTP POST request containing the payload data to the webhook URL or endpoint already provided by the receiver.
The receiver:- The application that receives and processes the webhook data. It receives the HTTP request and extracts and processes the payload data.
THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT WEBHOOKS
Webhooks payloads are usually in serialized form-encoded JSON or XML formats.
Both the sender and receiver applications must have the necessary functionalities to send and receive HTTP requests.
A secure HTTPS URL endpoint should be provided as the webhook receiver.
It is best to respond with a 200 or 302 HTTP response status code when a notification is sent.
A single webhook request can be distributed to multiple destinations that need the information.
USES OF WEBHOOKS
Webhooks are used in web development to enable communication between different services, some other uses are;
Data Synchronization
Integration with Third-Party Services
Real-time Updates
Web Analytics and Tracking
CONCLUSION
Webhooks have become a popular method to improve efficiency among online platforms by enabling real-time communication between applications.
Top comments (2)
This is very enlightening. Thank you for sharing.
Good write up, Ini.