Understanding webhooks

To notify you of events, watchers use webhooks. Webhooks are automated requests so they are automatically sent out when their event is fired in the source system.

WEBHOOK VALIDATION

When setting up a webhook with Starton, your designated webhook server must be valid and responsive.

Starton not only tests webhooks when creating watchers but also upon resuming a paused watcher. During these tests, the following message will be sent to your server: "Starton webhook test for responding server." This signifies that Starton is validating that your server is up.

All payloads we send, including test messages, are signed. You can verify these signatures to ensure that the webhook calls are genuinely from Starton.

To understand how to authenticate and verify that the webhook calls are genuinely originating from Starton, please refer to our detailed guide: How to Ensure Notify's Webhooks are from Starton.

This callout provides a concise and direct explanation, ensuring that users are aware of the importance of webhook validity, testing, and payload verification.

Creating a URL to receive a webhook

You can create a URL to receive webhooks using several methods.

For example, you can use Zapier to create a webhook. See our use case tutorial, Track a wallet activity on a Googlesheets using Starton and Zapier.

Webhook.site provides you with addresses for testing and debbuging.

You can also use ngrok to test webhooks on localhost.

Retrying a webhook

If your server does not respond with an HTTP code signifing the request has been successful, webhooks are sent again.

Attempt	Retry After
1st	5 minutes
2nd	15 minutes
3rd	1 hour
4th	6 hours
5th	1 day

After the last retry, one day after the first request that remains unanswered, the watcher is paused.