webhook-toolkit
Receive, forward, sign and verify webhooks from your terminal, your test suite and your AI agent.
One package: a CLI (webhook-toolkit, alias whtk), a typed library and an MCP server, backed by webhook-toolkit.com.
[npm]
[license]
[node]
[CI]
Quick start
That's it: no account, no config. You get a public URL; paste it into Stripe, GitHub, Shopify or any other sender, and every webhook shows up in your terminal and is re-sent to your local handler:
Every request is also kept in a web inspector (headers, raw body, replay), so nothing is lost when your handler crashes.
Contents
CLI
A few things worth knowing:
- Sub-paths and query strings are kept. A request to
…/r/<token>/stripe?x=1 is forwarded to http://localhost:3000/webhooks/stripe?x=1, so one URL can feed several handlers.
- Headers are forwarded as received (minus hop-by-hop headers,
host and content-length), so signature checks in your handler pass exactly as in production.
--json prints NDJSON (listening, request, forward events) for scripting: whtk listen -f 3000 --json | jq .request.event.
- Colors follow
NO_COLOR, FORCE_COLOR and are off when output is not a terminal.
Send a signed test event
Debug "invalid signature"
The verifier replays the usual mistakes (whitespace in the secret, added or stripped trailing newline, CRLF conversion, expired timestamp, and for Twilio: http vs https, port, query string, trailing slash, repeated parameters) and tells you which one matches. The same logic powers the online signature validator.
Test webhooks in your test suite
The library gives your tests a real public URL and a way to wait for what lands on it. It works anonymously; set WEBHOOK_TOOLKIT_KEY in CI for permanent URLs and higher limits.
Vitest (or Jest in ESM mode)
waitForRequest checks requests that already arrived since the endpoint was created, then long-polls until timeoutMs, so the order of "trigger" and "wait" does not matter. It rejects with a WebhookToolkitError (code: "timeout") when nothing matched.
To test your handler without any network at all, sign the payload locally:
Playwright
The package is ESM-only. CommonJS test runners work on Node ≥ 20.19 / 22.12 (native require(esm)); Jest needs its ESM mode.
Use it from AI agents (MCP)
webhook-toolkit mcp is a Model Context Protocol server. Your coding agent can create a webhook URL, wait for the delivery after triggering it, read the payload, then replay it or send freshly signed events to your localhost handler while it fixes the code.
The API key is optional: everything except list_webhook_urls and explain_webhook_request works anonymously.
Claude Code
Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json), Windsurf (~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json), Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)
VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)
Codex CLI (~/.codex/config.toml)
ChatGPT, Claude.ai and other remote-capable clients: add a custom connector pointing at the hosted server, nothing to install:
(Streamable HTTP, optional Authorization: Bearer whk_….) The hosted server cannot reach your machine, so replaying to localhost and send_signed_webhook need the local server above.
Outputs are compact text plus the key JSON; bodies over 20 KB are truncated with a note pointing to the inspector. To embed the server in your own process: import { createMcpServer } from "webhook-toolkit/mcp".
Signing and verifying
sign() and verify() run locally with node:crypto: secrets never leave your machine. Signatures are byte-for-byte identical to the webhook-toolkit.com signer, and the tests check them against the providers' published examples (GitHub, Slack, Twilio, Svix).
verify() returns { valid, reason?, message, expected?, received?, timestamp? }. Failure reasons: missing_signature, malformed_signature, missing_timestamp, missing_url, invalid_secret, timestamp_out_of_tolerance (default 300 s, toleranceSeconds: 0 disables), signature_mismatch, secret_whitespace, body_trailing_newline_added, body_trailing_newline_removed, body_line_endings_changed, url_mismatch (Twilio), body_hash_mismatch (Twilio JSON). Comparisons are constant-time.
Provider detection
detectProvider(headers, body) returns { provider, event } from a data-driven table (DETECTION_RULES), for example { provider: "stripe", event: "invoice.paid" } or { provider: "twilio", event: "message.received" }. It knows Stripe, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Shopify, WooCommerce, Slack, SendGrid, Twilio, Paddle, Svix (Clerk, Resend), GoCardless, PayPal, Discord, Linear, Typeform, Calendly, Square, HubSpot, Zoom, Lemon Squeezy, Coinbase Commerce, Twitch, Mux, Vercel, Netlify, Sentry, Trello, Plaid, Mandrill, Jira, Postmark, Mollie, Adyen, Mailgun and Redsys. Adding one is a table entry plus a test fixture.
Relay: a real tunnel (paid)
listen --forward is free and fine for most webhooks, but the sender receives the capture URL's response, not your app's. When the sender needs your real answer (Slack slash commands, Twilio TwiML, Shopify mandatory responses, OAuth callbacks), use the relay:
Requests to the public URL are proxied over a WebSocket to your machine and your local response (status, headers, body) goes back to the caller. It reconnects with backoff. The relay comes with the 7-day Pass or Pro.
Free vs paid
Details and the Business plan: webhook-toolkit.com/pricing. Everything that runs locally (signing, verifying, detection, forwarding) is free and stays free.
How it compares
- smee.io is a free, open-source service from the GitHub Probot team that forwards webhooks to localhost through its client. If forwarding is all you need, it does the job. webhook-toolkit's
listen --forward works the same way and adds a stored inspector, provider/event detection, replay, signing and verification tools, a test-suite API and an MCP server.
- webhook.site is a mature hosted request inspector with custom responses and paid automation features. webhook-toolkit covers the inspect-and-respond part and focuses on the local developer loop: forwarding, signed test events, signature diagnosis, tests and agents.
- ngrok is a general-purpose tunnel for any HTTP or TCP service, with a local traffic inspector. Pick it to expose a whole app. webhook-toolkit's free flow needs no account, and its paid relay is scoped to webhooks.
Library reference
forwardRequest(request, target) re-sends a captured request from your machine (the same function behind listen --forward and replay). Errors are WebhookToolkitError with status (HTTP status, 0 for network errors), code (unauthorized, upgrade_required, plan_limit, expired, timeout, network_error, …) and upgradeUrl on 402 answers. Everything is typed; types ship with the package.
Configuration
whtk login stores the key in ~/.config/webhook-toolkit/config.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/webhook-toolkit/config.json) with mode 600. The same file remembers the last URL used by listen.
A capture URL's token is a capability: anyone holding it can read the requests sent to it. Use an account for anything sensitive; the owner's key is then required to change or delete the URL.
Requirements
Node.js 18.17 or later. Runtime dependencies: @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and zod (MCP server) and ws (relay).
Contributing
Issues and pull requests are welcome: see CONTRIBUTING.md. New providers for detection or signing are the easiest place to start.
License
MIT © 2026 Kipdev. Hosted service: webhook-toolkit.com.