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Ad-hoc webhooks

Learn how to set one-off webhooks for Actor runs started via the Apify API or from the Actor's code. Trigger the event once the run reaches a desired state.

An ad-hoc webhook is a one-time webhook created for a certain Actor run when starting the run using the Apify API. It's triggered no more than once when the given run transitions into the desired state. Ad-hoc webhooks can be defined using a URL parameter webhooks added to the API endpoint that starts an Actor or Actor task:

https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/[ACTOR_ID]/runs?token=[YOUR_API_TOKEN]&webhooks=[AD_HOC_WEBHOOKS]

where AD_HOC_WEBHOOKS is a base64 encoded stringified JSON array of webhook definitions:

[
    {
        eventTypes: ['ACTOR.RUN.FAILED'],
        requestUrl: 'https://example.com/run-failed',
    },
    {
        eventTypes: ['ACTOR.RUN.SUCCEEDED'],
        requestUrl: 'https://example.com/run-succeeded',
        payloadTemplate: '{"hello": "world", "resource":{{resource}}}',
    },
];

Creating an ad-hoc webhook dynamically​

You can also create a webhook dynamically from the code of your Actor using the Actor's add webhook method:

import { Actor } from 'apify';

await Actor.init();
// ...
await Actor.addWebhook({
    eventTypes: ['ACTOR.RUN.FAILED'],
    requestUrl: 'https://example.com/run-failed',
});
// ...
await Actor.exit();

To learn more, see the JavaScript SDK documentation or the Python SDK documentation.

To ensure that duplicate ad-hoc webhooks won't get created in the case of Actor restart, you can use the idempotency key parameter. The idempotency key must be unique across all the webhooks of a user so that only one webhook gets created for a given value. You can use, for example, the Actor run ID as an idempotency key:

import { Actor } from 'apify';

await Actor.init();
// ...
await Actor.addWebhook({
    eventTypes: ['ACTOR.RUN.FAILED'],
    requestUrl: 'https://example.com/run-failed',
    idempotencyKey: process.env.APIFY_ACTOR_RUN_ID,
});
// ...
await Actor.exit();