Webhooks are user-defined HTTP callbacks. They are triggered by some event in a web application and can facilitate integrating different applications or third-party APIs, like Omnibasis.
Omnibasis uses webhooks to let your application know when events happen, such as new user registration or customer information update. When the event occurs, Omnibasis makes an HTTP request (usually a POST or a GET) to the URL you configured for the webhook. Omnibasis 's request will include details of the event such as the user provided information or the body of an incoming message.
To handle a webhook you only need to build a small web application that can accept the HTTP requests. If you already have a web application set up, handling a webhook is usually as easy as adding a new URL to your application.
If you don't already have a web application, almost all server-side programming languages offer frameworks to help you build one. Examples include:
- ASP.NET MVC for C#
- Servlets and Spark for Java
- Express for Node.js
- Django and Flask for Python
- Rails and Sinatra for Ruby
- PHP can be used alone or with frameworks like Laravel, Symfony and YiiYii.
Webhooks can also be handled by serverless frameworks like AWS Lambda and Azure Functions. Really anything that can receive and reply to an HTTP request will do. Got a Raspberry Pi lying around?
Whichever framework and language you choose, webhooks function the same for every Omnibasis application. An HTTP request will be made to a URI that you provide to Omnibasis. Your application performs whatever logic you feel necessary - read/write from a database, integrate with another API, or perform some computation - then replies to Omnibasis with a response.