Webhook

A webhook is an HTTP callback that a service sends to a URL of your choosing when a specific event occurs — a payment completes, a form is submitted, a ticket is updated. Webhooks are the standard mechanism for triggering AI automation pipelines from external platforms without polling.

Unlike REST API polling (where your system asks 'anything new?' on a schedule), webhooks push data immediately when an event happens, enabling near-real-time automation. Webhook security requires signature verification (HMAC) on every incoming payload to prevent spoofing. In AI agent architectures, webhooks are the entry point that hands off external events to the agent's processing loop.