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AI, Software Engineering
The Postman Always Rings Once: What Nobody Tells You About Webhooks
Webhook explained: Stop polling. Start listening.
Rakia Ben Sassi6 min read·Just now--
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It’s Friday. Your on-call phone buzzes. A customer is furious — they paid for an order an hour ago, but their account still shows pending.
You check Stripe. The payment went through. You check your database. Crickets. Somewhere between Stripe’s servers and yours, a message was born, traveled across the internet… and vanished into the void.
Welcome to your first real lesson in webhooks. Pull up a chair.
The Mental Model Shift Nobody Warns You About
Most of us spend years thinking in polling: “I’ll check every 5 minutes if something changed.” It’s comfortable. You’re in control. You ask, you receive, you move on.
Webhooks flip this completely. Instead of you asking, someone else knocks on your door — once, immediately, when something happens. Think of it like switching from checking your mailbox every morning to having the postal service ring your doorbell the moment a package arrives.
The catch?
If you’re not home when they knock, the package doesn’t wait. Most webhook providers will retry…
