Webhooks are useful for event-driven integrations, but delivery happens across systems that can fail independently. A reliable design assumes events may arrive late, more than once or out of order.
Make processing repeatable
Give each event a stable identifier and record whether it has already been processed. A retry should not create a duplicate invoice, booking or notification. Keep the receiver's first response fast and move longer work to a queue when appropriate.
Choose a retry policy
Retry temporary failures with increasing delay and a clear limit. Distinguish a transient server error from a permanently invalid destination. Document the delivery window so integrators know what to expect.
- Verify the sender using an agreed mechanism.
- Log event IDs and delivery attempts.
- Provide a path to inspect or replay failed events.
Handle ordering and missing events
Do not assume two related events arrive in the same order they occurred. When order matters, include a version or fetch the current resource state before applying a change. Reconciliation jobs can help detect records that drifted when an event was missed.
Make failures visible
Track delivery success, delay and repeated failure. Alert owners when a destination stops receiving important events. A simple dashboard showing attempts and responses can save hours of guessing during an incident.
Practical next step
Treat webhook delivery as an at-least-once workflow and build explicit tools for retries, deduplication and recovery.
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