📦 From Delivery to Rotation: Making Serverless Webhooks Work for Trending Hashtags 🚀

🔁 Why Your Webhook Isn’t Rotating Hashtags

Troubleshooting webhook setup with friendly steps and civic-grade clarity…

Imagine your webhook is like a mailman delivering a message to your app. You expect it to bring new hashtags, but nothing ever changes. Why?

Your webhook is showing up, but it’s not bringing any hashtags because it doesn’t know what to do with them!

🧠 What the Code Does

• It checks if the message is real (using a secret key)
• It logs the type of message (like “push” or “star”)
• It sends back a “✅ Verified” message if everything looks good

❌ But it doesn’t actually grab or rotate any hashtags. That part is missing!

🛠️ How to Fix It

1. Capture the Raw Message
   Serverless apps sometimes change the message before you read it. You need to grab it raw:

   export const config = { api: { bodyParser: false, }, };

   Then use:

   import getRawBody from 'raw-body'; const rawBody = await getRawBody(req);

2. Add Hashtag Logic
   After verifying the message, extract hashtags and rotate them:

   const hashtags = extractHashtags(req.body); updateTrendingList(hashtags);

3. 
   - Go to your repo → Settings → Webhooks - Add your deployed URL (like `https://your-app.vercel.app/api/webhook-listener`) - Choose events like push or star - Use the same secret key as in your `.env` file

📚 Glossary of Terms

Term	Kid-Friendly Meaning
Webhook	A message sent from one website to another when something happens
Serverless	A way to run code online without managing a server
HMAC	A secret math check to make sure the message is real
Payload	The actual message or data sent
Signature	A special code that proves the message is safe
Raw Body	The untouched message before it’s changed
Rotate	To change or update something regularly

Author: Peter M. Mutiti | Investigative Journalist & Civic Technologist

MIT License © 2025 Peter M. Mutiti · View License