Introducing Webhook API

A webhook is a mechanism that allows one application to provide real-time information to another application when a specific event occurs.

Think of webhooks as "reverse APIs" where instead of you requesting information, the SaaS pushes information to you when important events happen.

— from Claude 3.7 Sonnet

AI explains this feature very well. You can use Quotion to watch your note changes without managing a complex server infrastructure! You can use it to build your own documentation, blog, portfolio, or even mobile apps. You can think of this feature as CMS (Content Management System).

How to Enable It

Prerequisites

• A http server to handle POST requests
  • HTTPS is required
• A database is recommended to save your note data
  • Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB or Redis are all good choices
  • Memory cache or local file cache are also fine

Quotion settings

1. Log in to Quotion dashboard
2. Go to a site settings page
3. Configure a webhook URL and authorization header
4. Save the configurations

Once you have saved the webhook configurations, try making some changes to your site notes. Your HTTP server should receive events within 2 minutes.

Webhook request

Security check

Before parsing note data, you should check if the request has proper authorization header, abort it if it fails the check. This is highly recommended to protect your system.

A naive Next.js route example:

import { type NextRequest } from 'next/server';
 
export async function POST(req: NextRequest) {
  if (req.headers.get('authorization') !== 'MySecretToken') {
    return Response.json({ message: 'Unauthorized' }, { status: 401 });
  }
  return Response.json({ message: 'Webhook received' });
}

Request body

A simple webhook event request body:

{
  "site": {
    "id": "8652bd70-b55d-43ad-99d2-422c7957d24b",
    "subdomain": "emma"
  },
  "posts": [
    {
      "id": "suLA7Gc4ajawG4LLtHtSQ2",
      "md": "hello world,\n* [ ] milk\n* [ ] egg\n* [ ] potato\n* [ ] carrot\n",
      "title": "A new note",
      "draft": false,
      "featured": false,
      "hidden": false,
      "createdAt": "2025-03-06T07:44:44.8572",
      "updatedAt": "2025-03-0608:08:05. 212Z",
      "type": "added"
    }
  ]
}

• Every request has a site property to indicate which site triggers the events
• Posts have a list of note events
  • type indicates what kind of event it is, it has 2 values added and removed. Note: all updates are added events in Quotion
  • md means markdown format of the note

Need more?

If you need more properties or more events, feel free to share your scenarios with us:
Contact Support

FAQs

1. How long can I process a request before it’s aborted?
Quotion sets a 15-second timer for every webhook request. If your server doesn’t handle the request within 15 seconds, it will be aborted and retried later.
Your server should respond to the request as soon as possible and handle the data processing later. If you’re using a serverless platform like Vercel, you can use the waitUntil or Next.js 15 after API.

2. How many times will Quotion retry failed webhook requests?
Quotion retries a failed webhook request up to 3 times. If the request fails again after 3 attempts, we’ll send a notification email to you. If the request fails continuously for 3 times, we’ll disable your webhook.