Why use Webhooks?

Webhooks are a powerful resource that you can use to automate your workflow and improve the scalability of your implementation.

With the exception of the step where you Create a Business via the API, the Middesk workflow is largely asynchronous.

Since Business entities are not static, it is common for Middesk to find updated information about that Business as it continues to monitor it. If you have a Webhook set up, Middesk can immediately notify you of that change upon discovery.

Some examples of when Middesk would send a Webhook are:

• Approving a new account when a Business is complete and meets requirements
• Notifying a team when a Business requires further review
• Updating account profiles with accurate, validated business information

Creating a Webhook

If you provide Middesk a Webhook URL, we will send requests to it to notify you any time an event takes place for a Business.

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Registering Webhooks

To register your Webhook URL with Middesk, use our Webhooks API or go to the Webhooks section in your Dashboard Settings.

Webhook Events

A Webhook request consists of an Event object payload that Middesk will send via an HTTP POST request to your URL endpoint.

The request contains all the relevant information about how the Business object in question was updated, including the type of event and the data associated with it.

An Event object payload contains the following fields:

{
  "object": "event",
  "id": "f215a707-655e-400f-84e6-fbb949f5612a",
  "type": "business.created",
  "data": {
    "object": {
      "id": "0f86dab5-8195-4b95-b3c0-19deaeba2a8e",
      "tin": null,
      "name": "A Company",
      "tags": [],
      "names": [],
      "domain": null,
      "object": "business",
      "review": null,
      "status": "open",
      "orders": [
        {
          "id": "d9e4076c-25d7-4a93-917b-66568459cbc4",
          "object": "order",
          "status": "pending",
          "product": "identity",
          "created_at": "2020-01-02T23:54:48.180Z",
          "updated_at": "2020-01-02T23:54:48.180Z",
          "completed_at": null
        }
      ],
      "summary": null,
      "website": null,
      "officers": [],
      "addresses": [],
      "formation": null,
      "watchlist": null,
      "created_at": "2020-01-02T23:54:48.154Z",
      "updated_at": "2020-01-02T23:54:48.154Z",
      "external_id": null,
      "phone_numbers": [],
      "registrations": []
    }
  },
  "created_at": "2020-01-02T23:54:48.239Z"
}

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Note: Middesk will add new events in the future. If there are specific events that you would like prioritized, please contact [email protected].

Types of Webhook Events

Today, Webhook requests consist of the following types:

Checking Webhook Signatures

Middesk can optionally sign the Webhook requests that it sends to your endpoints. We do so by including a signature in the request's X-Middesk-Signature header. This header allows you to verify that the requests were sent by Middesk, not by a third party.

Before you can verify signatures, you'll need to set a secret via the Webhooks API.

Signatures are generated by Middesk using a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) with SHA-1. To check the signature, follow these steps:

Step 1: Extract the signature from the header

Read the value from the X-Middesk-Signature header.

Step 2: Prepare the expected signature

Compute an HMAC with the SHA-1 hash function. Use the provided secret as the key, and use the response body as the message.

Step 3: Compare the Signatures

Compare the signature extracted from the header to the expected signature that you computed.

require 'openssl'

secret = 'sec_...'

def verify(payload, signature)
  digest = OpenSSL::Digest.new('sha1')
  expected = OpenSSL::HMAC.hexdigest(digest, secret, payload)
  expected == signature
end

post '/my/webhook/url' do
  payload = request.body.read
  sig_header = request.env['X_MIDDESK_SIGNATURE']

  unless verify(payload, sig_header)
    # Invalid signature
    status 400
    return
  end
    
  event = JSON.parse(payload)
  
  case event.type
  when 'business.created'
    business = event.data.object
    puts 'Business created!'
  when 'business.updated'
    business = event.data.object
    puts 'Business updated!'
  # ... handle other event types
  else
    # Unexpected event type
    status 400
    return
  end

  status 200
end

IP Addresses for Webhooks

Below is the list of IP addresses that Middesk sends webhook requests from:

• 35.239.59.102
• 35.192.63.74
• 104.198.38.1