An Event Forwarder rule is a webhook subscription that lets Openpath (the “sender”) send notifications to the third-party app (“receiver”) via a Target URL.

In order for the Event Forwarder rule to work, Openpath follows the Immediate Confirmation model to validate the rule. Openpath sends an “Intent to Subscribe” HTTP POST request that includes an X-Hook-Secret header that contains a randomly generated string to the third-party app at the given target URL. The app must return an HTTP response that includes an X-Hook-Secret response header containing that same string. The Openpath cloud confirms the values match, and then allows the rule to be successfully created.

Event Forwarder workflow example:

1. Create an Event Forwarder rule in the Openpath Control Center with https://api.mycompany.com/openpath-receiver as the target URL

   1. To learn how to create rules, refer to How do I use the Rules Engine?

2. Openpath’s cloud sends the app an HTTP request at https://api.mycompany.com like this:

   POST /openpath-receiver HTTP/1.1
   Host: api.mycompany.com
   X-Hook-Secret: someLongRandomString12345
   [other standard http headers, not relevant here][no request body]

3. The receiver app’s API must respond to that request with a 200 response code and the same X-Hook-Secret:

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   X-Hook-Secret: someLongRandomString12345
   [other standard http headers, not relevant here][no response body]

4. Openpath finishes saving the rule and considers it now validated and active

For more information on X-Hook-Secrets and the Immediate Confirmation model, refer to REST Hooks documentation.