Thinking in Webhooks
Webhooks have come a long way from a concept first discussed back in 2007, to a commonly used pattern that helps power the apps and services you use daily. We have recently rolled out webhooks for Perch Security, so it seemed fitting to explain what webhooks are, the benefits of using them, and how you can start using webhooks in Perch today.
What are webhooks?
A webhook is a HTTP POST request that is sent to a user configured URL in response to some sort of event that has occurred. There is no formal definition or specification for webhooks, so implementations do vary; but a webhook usually consists of an HTTP request that is triggered by an event and sent to a user-defined URL. Examples of webhook-based products you may already know, or use include Zapier and IFTTT.
Benefits of adding webhooks to a service
- They allow for real-time, event-driven interactions for customers in everything from APIs to apps.
- Can be used as part of an internal architecture to process events quickly, as where older architectures may have used a combination of cron jobs and database queries to do batch updates.
- They allow for simplified architecture – you and your customers can consume the same hooks and act on them differently. Code them once and use them over and over again.
- Customers are able to integrate and extend your product without needing to do any additional product development.
Using webhooks with Perch
In our efforts to help you and your team *thrunt more effectively, we’ve added (limited) webhook support to Perch. To try it out, head over to the Organization Settings page and select “Webhooks” from the integration section. This iteration includes a webhook that will fire every time an alert is created for your team. As we identify more events that are key to Perch and our customers, we will add more webhooks. We look forward to hearing how our customers use these new webhooks as part of their workflow.
*thrunt (verb) - To hunt cyber security threats - “Jeremy really knows how to thrunt!"
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