> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://cometchat-22654f5b-docs-rn-guide-message-privately.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Webhooks

> Webhooks — CometChat documentation.

CometChat can send webhook events that notify your application any time an event happens on your account.

## Setting up webhooks

### Create a webhook endpoint

Webhook data is sent as JSON in the POST request body. Creating a webhook endpoint on your server is no different from creating any page on your website. With PHP, you might create a new .php file on your server; with a Ruby framework like Sinatra, you would add a new route with the desired URL.

### Test the endpoint locally

Once you’ve added an endpoint to your server, start an instance locally and use a tool like [ngrok](https://ngrok.com) to make your endpoint available for receiving events.

Start ngrok in a command prompt with the same port number that you have configured for your server (e.g., ./ngrok http 8000). You should see information about your tunnel session such as status, expiration, and version. Take note of the Forwarding addresses (e.g., [https://xxxxxxxx.ngrok.io](https://xxxxxxxx.ngrok.io) -> localhost:8000) as this is required for the following step.

### Configure webhook settings

With your endpoint created, you need to tell CometChat about where to send events to. In the Dashboard's Webhooks section, click **Create Webhook** to reveal a form to add a new webhook for receiving events. You can enter any URL as the destination for events. However, this should be a dedicated page on your server that is set up to receive webhook events.

Once you've created the webhook, click **View/Update** to add a trigger. We support two types of triggers-

| Trigger         | Description                                                 |
| --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| after\_message  | The endpoint will be triggered after a message is sent.     |
| before\_message | The endpoint will be triggered when a message is in-flight. |

The `after_message` trigger is fairly straightforward. CometChat will call your endpoint once a message has been sent.

The `before_message` trigger is useful when you want to add metadata to a message before it reaches the recipient. The data you return will be automatically added to the message metadata:

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="JSON">
    ```json theme={null}
    {
      "@injected": {
        "webhooks": {
          "webhook-id": {
            // JSON Object Response From Endpoint
          }
        }
      }
    }
    ```
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

You can also decide to drop a message by returning the following JSON object-

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="JSON">
    ```json theme={null}
    {
      "action": "do_not_propagate"
    }  
    ```
  </Tab>
</Tabs>