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Capturing Webhooks

Webhooks are crucial for integrating third-party systems—but they can be hard to debug. Inspectr makes it easy to capture, inspect, and replay webhook events locally or remotely.

Use Cases

Section titled “Use Cases”

You’re building an app that receives webhook callbacks (e.g. from Stripe, GitHub, or Zapier), and you want to:

  • See exactly what payloads are sent
  • Validate headers or auth tokens
  • Debug retries and delivery issues

Step 1: Start Inspectr in Catch Mode

Section titled “Step 1: Start Inspectr in Catch Mode”

If you don’t have a backend to forward to, use --catch mode to just capture and respond:

Terminal window
inspectr --catch=true
  • Returns 200 OK by default to all requests
  • Captures and logs every request
  • UI available at http://localhost:4004

Step 2: Expose It Publicly (for Remote Webhooks)

Section titled “Step 2: Expose It Publicly (for Remote Webhooks)”

To allow third-party services to call your local Inspectr instance:

Terminal window
inspectr --catch=true --expose=true --channel=webhooks --channel-code=secret123

Your webhook endpoint becomes:

https://webhooks.in-spectr.dev

Step 3: Trigger the Webhook

Section titled “Step 3: Trigger the Webhook”

Configure your third-party service to send its webhook to your Inspectr public URL:

https://webhooks.in-spectr.dev/events

Once triggered, the request is:

  • Logged in your terminal
  • Available in the Inspectr App UI
  • Automatically responded to with 200 OK

Step 4: Replay Webhook Events

Section titled “Step 4: Replay Webhook Events”

Inside the Inspectr App, select any captured request and Replay it to:

  • Test how your local backend handles it
  • Re-trigger the same event without third-party involvement

Best Practices

Section titled “Best Practices”
  • Use catch mode when testing webhooks without needing a backend
  • Secure your exposed channel using --channel-code
  • Use Inspectr’s Replay feature for iterative development and debugging