Vercel Webhooks

When to Use This Skill

• Setting up Vercel webhook handlers
• Debugging signature verification failures
• Understanding Vercel event types and payloads
• Handling deployment, project, domain, or integration events
• Monitoring deployment status changes

Essential Code (USE THIS)

Express Webhook Handler with Manual Verification

const express = require('express');
const crypto = require('crypto');

const app = express();

// CRITICAL: Use express.raw() for webhook endpoint - Vercel needs raw body
app.post('/webhooks/vercel',
  express.raw({ type: 'application/json' }),
  async (req, res) => {
    const signature = req.headers['x-vercel-signature'];

    if (!signature) {
      return res.status(400).send('Missing x-vercel-signature header');
    }

    // Verify signature using SHA1 HMAC
    const expectedSignature = crypto
      .createHmac('sha1', process.env.VERCEL_WEBHOOK_SECRET)
      .update(req.body)
      .digest('hex');

    // Use timing-safe comparison
    let signaturesMatch;
    try {
      signaturesMatch = crypto.timingSafeEqual(
        Buffer.from(signature),
        Buffer.from(expectedSignature)
      );
    } catch (err) {
      // Buffer length mismatch = invalid signature
      signaturesMatch = false;
    }

    if (!signaturesMatch) {
      console.error('Invalid Vercel webhook signature');
      return res.status(400).send('Invalid signature');
    }

    // Parse the verified payload
    const event = JSON.parse(req.body.toString());

    // Handle the event
    switch (event.type) {
      case 'deployment.created':
        console.log('Deployment created:', event.payload.deployment.id);
        break;
      case 'deployment.succeeded':
        console.log('Deployment succeeded:', event.payload.deployment.id);
        break;
      case 'deployment.error':
        console.log('Deployment failed:', event.payload.deployment.id);
        break;
      case 'project.created':
        console.log('Project created:', event.payload.project.name);
        break;
      default:
        console.log('Unhandled event:', event.type);
    }

    res.json({ received: true });
  }
);

Python (FastAPI) Webhook Handler

import os
import hmac
import hashlib
from fastapi import FastAPI, Request, HTTPException, Header

app = FastAPI()
webhook_secret = os.environ.get("VERCEL_WEBHOOK_SECRET")

@app.post("/webhooks/vercel")
async def vercel_webhook(
    request: Request,
    x_vercel_signature: str = Header(None)
):
    if not x_vercel_signature:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Missing x-vercel-signature header")

    # Get raw body
    body = await request.body()

    # Compute expected signature
    expected_signature = hmac.new(
        webhook_secret.encode(),
        body,
        hashlib.sha1
    ).hexdigest()

    # Timing-safe comparison
    if not hmac.compare_digest(x_vercel_signature, expected_signature):
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Invalid signature")

    # Parse verified payload
    event = await request.json()

    # Handle event
    if event["type"] == "deployment.created":
        print(f"Deployment created: {event['payload']['deployment']['id']}")
    elif event["type"] == "deployment.succeeded":
        print(f"Deployment succeeded: {event['payload']['deployment']['id']}")
    # ... handle other events

    return {"received": True}

For complete working examples with tests, see:

• examples/express/ - Full Express implementation
• examples/nextjs/ - Next.js App Router implementation
• examples/fastapi/ - Python FastAPI implementation

Common Event Types

Event	Triggered When	Common Use Cases
deployment.created	A new deployment starts	Start deployment monitoring, notify team
deployment.succeeded	Deployment completes successfully	Update status, trigger post-deploy tasks
deployment.error	Deployment fails	Alert team, rollback actions
deployment.canceled	Deployment is canceled	Clean up resources
project.created	New project is created	Set up monitoring, configure resources
project.removed	Project is deleted	Clean up external resources
domain.created	Domain is added	Update DNS, SSL configuration

See references/overview.md for the complete event list.

Environment Variables

# Required
VERCEL_WEBHOOK_SECRET=your_webhook_secret_from_dashboard

# Optional (for API calls)
VERCEL_TOKEN=your_vercel_api_token

Local Development

For local webhook testing, install Hookdeck CLI:

# Install via npm
npm install -g hookdeck-cli

# Or via Homebrew
brew install hookdeck/hookdeck/hookdeck

Then start the tunnel:

hookdeck listen 3000 --path /webhooks/vercel

No account required. Provides local tunnel + web UI for inspecting requests.

Reference Materials

• Webhook Overview - What Vercel webhooks are, all event types
• Setup Guide - Configure webhooks in Vercel dashboard
• Signature Verification - SHA1 HMAC verification details

Recommended: webhook-handler-patterns

For production-ready webhook handling, also install the webhook-handler-patterns skill to learn:

• Handler sequence - Correct order of operations
• Idempotency - Handle duplicate webhooks
• Error handling - Proper status codes and retries
• Retry logic - Handle transient failures

Related Skills

• stripe-webhooks - Stripe payment webhooks
• github-webhooks - GitHub repository webhooks
• shopify-webhooks - Shopify store webhooks
• sendgrid-webhooks - SendGrid email webhooks
• webhook-handler-patterns - Idempotency, error handling, retry logic
• hookdeck-event-gateway - Webhook infrastructure that replaces your queue — guaranteed delivery, automatic retries, replay, rate limiting, and observability for your webhook handlers