Webhook Verification

Overview

Webhook verification is the broader process of establishing event authenticity, freshness, integrity, replay safety, and relevance before trusting it. Webhook Verification is the consumer process that validates signature, secret or key, timestamp, payload bytes, and replay rules before trusting an event. Webhook Verification participates in event creation, signing, delivery, receipt, durable storage, processing, retry, and reconciliation. For Webhook Verification, the event identifier, signature result, delivery attempt, and resulting business state should remain connected throughout processing.

Receivers should verify exact signed bytes, approved keys and algorithms, bounded time, unique event identity, and expected environment before parsing into trusted workflow. Verification may combine TLS, signature checking, trusted key selection, timestamp validation, nonce or event deduplication, endpoint or network controls, and confirmation that the subscription and environment are expected. Replay of Webhook Verification should preserve original identifiers and timestamps so historical processing cannot masquerade as a new event.

For Webhook Verification, developers should retain one correlation path across these stages because an immediate response can differ from later provider, blockchain, payment, accounting, or settlement state. Verification also does not prove that the event belongs to the expected order or represents a legal state transition. IP allowlists alone are fragile, and a valid signature alone does not prevent replay.

Business validation and authoritative status checks should follow. Failures must be logged safely and fail closed.

A receiver should treat transport acknowledgement and successful downstream processing as separate states for Webhook Verification.

The Webhook Verification path should preserve ordering and duplicate evidence so delayed delivery cannot silently overwrite a newer state.