Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsChoose a webhook subscription when you need timely event notifications and can operate a secure, publicly reachable HTTPS receiver. Choose polling when periodic updates are fresh enough, inbound connections are unavailable, or the source offers no usable event subscription. For important data, a practical design is often both: use push for speed, then poll the source API to reconcile state.
How do webhooks differ from polling?
A webhook subscription asks a provider to send an HTTP request to your application when a subscribed event occurs. With polling, your application calls the provider’s API on a schedule to ask whether anything has changed. GitHub describes webhooks as event-triggered deliveries to your server and says they can reduce effort and resource use while supporting near-real-time updates; those benefits depend on the provider and its delivery behavior, not a universal guarantee. GitHub’s webhook overview
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| Decision | Webhook push | Polling |
|---|---|---|
| Freshness | Triggered by subscribed events; delivery may still be delayed, retried, or fail under the provider’s policy. | Set by the polling interval; longer intervals mean observations can be staler. |
| Network access | Requires an endpoint the provider can reach, typically public HTTPS. | The client initiates requests, so the application does not need to accept inbound calls. |
| Request volume | Notifications arrive for subscribed events; narrow subscriptions to what you use. | Repeated checks consume API requests and may use quota, especially across many resources. |
| Failure responsibility | You must validate, acknowledge, deduplicate, monitor, and recover from failed or missed deliveries. | You control scheduling and client retries, subject to the API’s rate limits and behavior. |
| Security focus | Protect the endpoint, verify TLS and signatures, and store secrets safely. | Protect API credentials and follow the source API’s authentication and rate-limit rules. |
Choosing webhooks or the REST API: which fits your needs?
Choose push when timely reactions matter
Push is a strong fit when the provider supports the events you need, the endpoint can be exposed securely, and acting soon after a change has value. Examples include starting a background job when an event arrives or updating an internal view without repeatedly checking for changes. Subscribe only to necessary event types: that limits irrelevant traffic and reduces the work your receiver must handle. GitHub’s webhook best practices
Choose polling when control or reachability matters more
Polling is appropriate when a delay of one schedule interval is acceptable, the service cannot accept inbound traffic, or the source does not provide a suitable subscription. It also lets the client control when to ask, but that control comes with recurring API calls. Choose an interval based on the freshness you actually need and the API’s quota rules; there is no universal polling schedule that fits every provider.
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Use both when missing a change would matter
A webhook can provide a quick signal while periodic API reads check that your local state still matches the source. This is useful when a missed or delayed notification could leave important data wrong. The reconciliation interval should reflect how quickly you need to detect divergence and how much API capacity is available; the provider documentation cited here does not establish a general interval.
What delivery guarantees should you design for?
Do not assume a webhook will arrive exactly once or within a fixed time unless the specific provider contract explicitly promises that, for the relevant event and circumstances. A sender’s acknowledgement records what happened to an HTTP attempt under its own policy; it does not prove that every downstream business operation completed exactly once. Design for duplicate, delayed, retried, and ultimately missed notifications.
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Retries and redelivery are provider-specific
GitHub recommends redelivering missed deliveries after downtime and identifies deliveries with the X-GitHub-Delivery header. A requested redelivery retains that header, making it useful as a deduplication key. GitHub’s best practices
Slack documents three retries over a few minutes for unacknowledged Events API events. Its optional Delayed Events feature adds hourly retries for 24 hours after the initial sequence. Slack also describes delivery as best effort, warns that incidents can delay events, and says that by default it will not attempt events more than two hours late. These are Slack-specific policies, not general webhook guarantees. Slack Events API documentation
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Request idempotency is not a delivery guarantee
Stripe’s idempotency documentation concerns repeated API requests made with an idempotency key; it is not a blanket promise about webhook delivery. Stripe says a repeated request with the same key returns the saved result, and that keys may be pruned after they are at least 24 hours old. Reusing a key after it has been pruned can create a new request. Stripe’s idempotent requests documentation
How do you build a safer webhook receiver?
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Expose and protect the endpoint
Use HTTPS and keep certificate verification enabled. TLS protects the transport; signature validation checks origin and payload integrity under the provider’s signing scheme. Keep signing secrets in secure configuration, not in a URL or source control. If you restrict GitHub traffic by source IP, fetch the current ranges from GitHub’s metadata endpoint and refresh the allowlist periodically because those addresses can change. GitHub’s best practices
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Validate the signature before trusting the payload
For GitHub, retain the original request bytes, calculate the expected HMAC SHA-256 signature using the configured secret, and compare signatures in constant time. Do not parse or transform the body before verification if that changes the bytes used in the signature calculation. GitHub’s delivery validation guide
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Check the event type and action
Only route event types and actions your application recognizes. Providers can add event types or actions over time, so an unfamiliar event should not accidentally trigger business logic. GitHub’s best practices
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Deduplicate before non-repeatable effects
Persist a stable event or delivery identifier and enforce uniqueness in durable storage before starting effects that must not happen twice. Make handlers safe to retry where possible. A delivery ID helps identify repeated notifications; it does not itself make a payment, email, or other downstream action idempotent. Standard Webhooks specification
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Acknowledge only after a durable handoff
Keep the HTTP request path short. After validating and safely storing or queueing the event, acknowledge it and do slower work asynchronously where appropriate. GitHub says a receiver should return a 2XX response within 10 seconds; this is GitHub’s guidance, not a universal webhook deadline. Do not acknowledge work that has not been safely accepted by your system. GitHub’s best practices
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Log delivery outcomes and define recovery
Keep enough delivery history to diagnose failures, and document how missed events are recovered—such as provider redelivery or an API reconciliation read. For consequential state, reconciliation can detect a gap that exhausted retries cannot repair. Set its cadence to the freshness requirement and API limits rather than assuming one interval works for every system.
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How do you handle webhook retries and idempotency?
Treat retries as a normal operating condition. Record the provider’s stable delivery or event identifier, reject or safely ignore an already-processed identifier, and make any remaining handler work repeatable where possible. Track processing status separately from receipt: an HTTP 2XX response should mean the event was accepted at the boundary you have chosen, not necessarily that every downstream task is complete. Confirm the provider’s retry window and redelivery tools, then keep a recovery path for events that cannot be recovered through retries alone. The exact policy varies by provider; GitHub and Slack document materially different behavior.
Quick Recap
What should you verify before choosing?
- Freshness: How long can your application wait to learn about a change?
- Connectivity: Can the provider reach a public HTTPS endpoint operated by your application?
- Event coverage: Does the provider emit the event types and details your workflow needs?
- Quotas: What API request budget would your polling schedule consume?
- Recovery: Can you redeliver, replay, or reconcile after downtime or exhausted retries?
- Operations: Can you secure, monitor, and maintain the receiver and its queue or durable handoff?
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