What is webhook? ![build-status][badge]

<img src="https://github.com/adnanh/webhook/raw/development/docs/logo/logo-128x128.png" alt="Webhook" align="left" />

[webhook][w] is a lightweight configurable tool written in Go, that allows you to easily create HTTP endpoints (hooks) on your server, which you can use to execute configured commands. You can also pass data from the HTTP request (such as headers, payload or query variables) to your commands. [webhook][w] also allows you to specify rules which have to be satisfied in order for the hook to be triggered.

For example, if you're using Github or Bitbucket, you can use [webhook][w] to set up a hook that runs a redeploy script for your project on your staging server, whenever you push changes to the master branch of your project.

If you use Mattermost or Slack, you can set up an "Outgoing webhook integration" or "Slash command" to run various commands on your server, which can then report back directly to you or your channels using the "Incoming webhook integrations", or the appropriate response body.

[webhook][w] aims to do nothing more than it should do, and that is:

1. receive the request,
2. parse the headers, payload and query variables,
3. check if the specified rules for the hook are satisfied,
4. and finally, pass the specified arguments to the specified command via command line arguments or via environment variables.

Everything else is the responsibility of the command's author.

Not what you're looking for?

| <a href="https://www.hookdoo.com/?github"><img src="https://hookdoo.com/img/Hookdoo_Logo_1.png" height="48" alt="hookdoo" /></a> | <picture><source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="images/hookdeck-white.svg"><img height="36" alt="hookdeck" src="images/hookdeck-black.svg"></picture></a> | | :-: | :-: | | Scriptable webhook gateway to safely run your custom builds, deploys, and proxy scripts on your servers. | An event gateway to reliably ingest, verify, queue, transform, filter, inspect, monitor, and replay webhooks. |

Getting started

Installation

Building from source

To get started, first make sure you've properly set up your Go 1.21 or newer environment and then run

$ go build github.com/adnanh/webhook

to build the latest version of the [webhook][w].

Using package manager

Snap store

Ubuntu

If you are using Ubuntu linux (17.04 or later), you can install webhook using sudo apt-get install webhook which will install community packaged version.

Debian

If you are using Debian linux ("stretch" or later), you can install webhook using sudo apt-get install webhook which will install community packaged version (thanks @freeekanayaka) from https://packages.debian.org/sid/webhook

FreeBSD

If you are using FreeBSD, you can install webhook using pkg install webhook.

Download prebuilt binaries

Prebuilt binaries for different architectures are available at GitHub Releases.

Configuration

Next step is to define some hooks you want [webhook][w] to serve. [webhook][w] supports JSON or YAML configuration files, but we'll focus primarily on JSON in the following example. Begin by creating an empty file named hooks.json. This file will contain an array of hooks the [webhook][w] will serve. Check Hook definition page to see the detailed description of what properties a hook can contain, and how to use them.

Let's define a simple hook named redeploy-webhook that will run a redeploy script located in /var/scripts/redeploy.sh. Make sure that your bash script has #!/bin/sh shebang on top.

Our hooks.json file will now look like this:

[
  {
    "id": "redeploy-webhook",
    "execute-command": "/var/scripts/redeploy.sh",
    "command-working-directory": "/var/webhook"
  }
]

NOTE: If you prefer YAML, the equivalent hooks.yaml file would be:

- id: redeploy-webhook
  execute-command: "/var/scripts/redeploy.sh"
  command-working-directory: "/var/webhook"

You can now run [webhook][w] using

$ /path/to/webhook -hooks hooks.json -verbose

It will start up on default port 9000 and will provide you with one HTTP endpoint

http://yourserver:9000/hooks/redeploy-webhook

Check webhook parameters page to see how to override the ip, port and other settings such as hook hotreload, verbose output, etc, when starting the [webhook][w].

By performing a simple HTTP GET or POST request to that endpoint, your specified redeploy script would be executed. Neat!

However, hook defined like that could pose a security threat to your system, because anyone who knows your endpoint, can send a request and execute your command. To prevent that, you can use the "trigger-rule" property for your hook, to specify the exact circumstances under which the hook would be triggered. For example, you can use them to add a secret that you must supply as a parameter in order to successfully trigger the hook. Please check out the Hook rules page for detailed list of available rules and their usage.

Multipart Form Data

[webhook][w] provides limited support the parsing of multipart form data. Multipart form data can contain two types of parts: values and files. All form values are automatically added to the payload scope. Use the parse-parameters-as-json settings to parse a given value as JSON. All files are ignored unless they match one of the following criteria:

1. The Content-Type header is application/json.
2. The part is named in the parse-parameters-as-json setting.

In either case, the given file part will be parsed as JSON and added to the payload map.

Templates

[webhook][w] can parse the hooks configuration file as a Go template when given the -template CLI parameter. See the Templates page for more details on template usage.

Using HTTPS

[webhook][w] by default serves hooks using http. If you want [webhook][w] to serve secure content using https, you can use the -secure flag while starting [webhook][w]. Files containing a certificate and matching private key for the server must be provided using the -cert /path/to/cert.pem and -key /path/to/key.pem flags. If the certificate is signed by a certificate authority, the cert file should be the concatenation of the server's certificate followed by the CA's certificate.

TLS version and cipher suite selection flags are available from the command line. To list available cipher suites, use the -list-cipher-suites flag. The -tls-min-version flag can be used with -list-cipher-suites.

Running behind a reverse proxy

[webhook][w] may be run behind a "reverse proxy" - another web-facing server such as Apache httpd or Nginx that accepts requests from clients and forwards them on to [webhook][h]. You can have [webhook][w] listen on a regular TCP port or on a Unix domain socket (with the -socket flag), then configure your proxy to send requests for a specific host name or sub-path over that port or socket to [webhook][w].

Note that when running in this mode the ip-whitelist trigger rule will not work as expected, since it will be checking the address of the proxy, not the client. Client IP restrictions will need to be enforced within the proxy, before it decides whether to forward the request to [webhook][w].

CORS Headers

If you want to set CORS headers, you can use the -header name=value flag while starting [webhook][w] to set the appropriate CORS headers that will be returned with each response.

Running under systemd

On platforms that use systemd, [webhook][w] supports the socket activation mechanism. If [webhook][w] detects that it has been launched from a systemd-managed socket it will automatically use that instead of opening its own listening port. See the systemd page for full details.

Interested in running webhook inside of a Docker container?

You can use one of the following Docker images, or create your own (please read this discussion):

• almir/webhook
• roxedus/webhook
• thecatlady/webhook
• lwlook/webhook - This setup allows direct access to the Docker host, providing a streamlined and efficient way to manage webhooks.

Examples

Check out Hook examples page for more complex examples of hooks.

Guides featuring webhook

• Plex 2 Telegram by @psyhomb
• Webhook & JIRA by @perfecto25
• Trigger Ansible AWX job runs on SCM (e.g. git) commit by @jpmens
• Deploy using GitHub webhooks by @awea
• Setting up Automatic Deployment and Builds Using Webhooks by Will Browning
• [Auto deploy your Node.js app on push to G