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Webhooks let you send real-time notifications to external URLs whenever something happens in your app. When a record is created, updated, or deleted, Exo sends an HTTP request to any subscribed webhook URLs with the details of what changed.

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What are webhooks?

Think of webhooks as “reverse API calls.” Instead of an external service asking your app for updates, your app tells the external service when something happens. For example, when a new order is created in your app, Exo can automatically notify:
  • A Zapier workflow that sends a Slack message
  • A Make scenario that updates a spreadsheet
  • An n8n workflow that creates an invoice

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Triggers

Each resource defines which events it responds to. There are three trigger types:
TriggerWhen it fires
on_createA new record is created
on_updateAn existing record is updated
on_deleteA record is deleted
You define triggers in your resource class: 
public function triggers(): array
{
    return ['on_create', 'on_update', 'on_delete'];
}
You can include any combination. For example, if you only want to notify when records are created: 
public function triggers(): array
{
    return ['on_create'];
}

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How webhook delivery works

When a trigger fires, here’s what happens:
  1. Exo detects the model event (created, updated, or deleted)
  2. It finds all webhook subscriptions that match the resource and event
  3. For each matching subscription, Exo dispatches a background job
  4. The job sends an HTTP POST to the subscriber’s URL with the event data
  5. The payload includes an HMAC signature so the receiver can verify it’s authentic
Webhooks are delivered via Laravel’s queue system. Make sure you have a queue worker running (php artisan queue:work) for webhooks to be sent.

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Webhook payload

Every webhook delivery sends a JSON payload like this: 
{
  "event": "on_create",
  "resource": "order",
  "data": {
    "id": 42,
    "order_number": "ORD-001",
    "status": "pending",
    "total": 49.99,
    "customer_name": "Jane Smith",
    "created_at": "2026-03-28T14:30:00+00:00"
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-03-28T14:30:00.123456Z"
}
The data field contains the output of your resource’s transform method. The event and resource fields tell the receiver what happened and to which resource.

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Ownership and webhooks

Webhook subscriptions respect the same ownership rules as the API:
  • Admins receive webhooks for all records, regardless of owner
  • Regular users only receive webhooks for records they own (based on the resource’s ownerColumn)
This means if User A subscribes to on_create for orders, they only receive webhooks for orders where user_id matches their ID.

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Custom webhook queue

By default, webhook delivery jobs run on the queue defined in config('exo.queue'). You can override this per resource: 
public function webhookQueue(): ?string
{
    return 'webhooks';
}
Return null to use the default queue.