Webhooks

Receive real-time events from WhatsApp via HTTP webhooks.

Register Webhook

Register a webhook for a session.

POST /api/v1/sessions/{session_id}/webhooks

Request Body

{
  "url": "https://example.com/webhook",
  "events": ["message", "connected", "disconnected"],
  "secret": "your-webhook-secret"
}

Field	Type	Required	Description
url	string	Yes	Webhook endpoint URL
events	array	No	Events to subscribe (default: all)
secret	string	No	HMAC-SHA256 secret for signature

Response

{
  "id": "webhook-uuid",
  "url": "https://example.com/webhook",
  "events": ["message", "connected", "disconnected"],
  "enabled": true
}

---

List Webhooks

Get all webhooks for a session.

GET /api/v1/sessions/{session_id}/webhooks

Response

{
  "webhooks": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/webhook",
      "events": ["all"],
      "secret": null,
      "enabled": true
    }
  ],
  "count": 1
}

---

Delete Webhook

Remove a webhook.

DELETE /api/v1/sessions/{session_id}/webhooks/{webhook_id}

---

Re-enable Webhook

Webhooks are auto-disabled after 100 consecutive delivery failures (see Auto-disable below). Use this endpoint to flip a disabled webhook back to enabled=true and clear the disable metadata once the target endpoint is fixed.

POST /api/v1/sessions/{session_id}/webhooks/{webhook_id}/enable

Response

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Webhook re-enabled"
}

---

Circuit Breaker & Auto-disable

The dispatcher tracks per-URL delivery failures and reacts in two stages so a single dead endpoint can't flood the log or block the runtime.

• OPEN (5 min cooldown) — after 25 consecutive failures the URL enters an OPEN circuit. Dispatch is skipped for 5 minutes; log lines drop to a single circuit OPEN warning instead of one per attempt.
• Auto-disable (permanent) — after 100 consecutive failures the webhook row is switched to enabled=false, disabled_at gets the current timestamp, and disabled_reason records the last error string. In-memory registrations pointing at that URL are purged from every session at the same time. The dispatcher will never try the URL again until it is re-enabled via POST /webhooks/{id}/enable.

Schema columns

The webhooks table carries two additional columns:

• disabled_at (TIMESTAMPTZ / VARCHAR(30) / TEXT depending on backend) — when the auto-disable fired, NULL otherwise
• disabled_reason (TEXT) — the last error surfaced before the auto-disable, for later triage

Both are cleared by POST /webhooks/{id}/enable.

---

Event Types

Core Events

Event	Description
all	Subscribe to all events
message	New message received
receipt	Message receipt (delivered, read)
presence	Contact online/offline status
chat_presence	Typing indicator
connected	Connected to WhatsApp
disconnected	Disconnected from WhatsApp
logged_out	Logged out from WhatsApp
qr_code	QR code generated
pair_code	Pair code generated

Group Events

Event	Description
group_update	Group info changed
joined_group	Joined a new group

Contact & Profile Events

Event	Description
picture_update	Profile picture changed
user_about_update	User about/status text changed
push_name_update	Display name changed
contact_update	Contact information updated
device_list_update	Linked devices changed

Chat Events

Event	Description
pin_update	Message pinned or unpinned
mute_update	Chat muted or unmuted
archive_update	Chat archived or unarchived
mark_chat_as_read	Chat marked as read

System Events

Event	Description
undecryptable_message	Received a message that could not be decrypted
client_outdated	Client version is outdated
offline_sync_preview	Preview of offline messages available
offline_sync_completed	Offline message sync completed

---

Webhook Payload

All webhook payloads follow this format:

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "message",
  "timestamp": 1767143203,
  "data": {
    // Event-specific data
  }
}

Message Event

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "message",
  "timestamp": 1767143203,
  "data": {
    "from": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net",
    "chat": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net",
    "message_id": "3EB0ABC123...",
    "is_from_me": false,
    "push_name": "Sender",
    "message_type": "text",
    "text": "hello",
    "caption": null,
    "media_mimetype": null,
    "media": null,
    "location": null,
    "is_group": false,
    "participant": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net"
  }
}

Location Message (v0.6.2+)

When message_type is location or a live location is received, the location field carries the GPS payload.

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "message",
  "data": {
    "from": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net",
    "message_id": "AC...",
    "message_type": "location",
    "text": null,
    "location": {
      "latitude": -6.98,
      "longitude": 109.13,
      "name": "Hotel X",
      "address": "Jl. Sudirman No. 1",
      "url": "https://maps.google.com/?q=-6.98,109.13",
      "accuracy_meters": 12,
      "speed_mps": 0,
      "is_live": false
    }
  }
}

Live locations carry the same latitude/longitude plus sequence_number, optional caption, and is_live: true. The body streams as a series of message events with the same message_id.

Connected Event

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "connected",
  "timestamp": 1767143203,
  "data": {}
}

Picture Update Event

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "picture_update",
  "timestamp": 1767143203,
  "data": {
    "jid": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net",
    "action": "set"
  }
}

Pin Update Event

{
  "session_id": "my-session",
  "event": "pin_update",
  "timestamp": 1767143203,
  "data": {
    "chat_jid": "628123456789@s.whatsapp.net",
    "pinned": true
  }
}

---

Signature Verification

If you provide a secret, WA-RS will sign the payload with HMAC-SHA256.

The signature is sent in the X-Webhook-Signature header:

X-Webhook-Signature: sha256=abc123...

Verification Example (Node.js)

const crypto = require('crypto');

function verifySignature(payload, signature, secret) {
  const expected = 'sha256=' + crypto
    .createHmac('sha256', secret)
    .update(payload)
    .digest('hex');

  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
    Buffer.from(signature),
    Buffer.from(expected)
  );
}

// Express middleware
app.post('/webhook', (req, res) => {
  const signature = req.headers['x-webhook-signature'];
  const payload = JSON.stringify(req.body);

  if (!verifySignature(payload, signature, 'your-secret')) {
    return res.status(401).send('Invalid signature');
  }

  // Process webhook
  console.log(req.body);
  res.sendStatus(200);
});

Verification Example (Python)

import hmac
import hashlib

def verify_signature(payload, signature, secret):
    expected = 'sha256=' + hmac.new(
        secret.encode(),
        payload.encode(),
        hashlib.sha256
    ).hexdigest()

    return hmac.compare_digest(signature, expected)

---

Best Practices

1. Always verify signatures in production
2. Respond quickly (within 5 seconds) to avoid timeouts
3. Use HTTPS for webhook endpoints
4. Handle duplicates - webhooks may be retried
5. Log everything for debugging