hookinlet in plain words

This page explains how an online service can let your agent know that something happened, what hookinlet does with those messages, and how to get started.

What a webhook is

A webhook is a short message one online service sends to another when something happens. Think of it as a text from the service saying "this just happened."

Stripe sends one when a payment fails. GitHub sends one when someone suggests a change to your project. Slack sends one when someone mentions your bot.

To send it, the service needs a web address to deliver to. That address has to be online all the time, because the service sends the message as soon as something happens.

Why your agent needs a place to receive them

Most agents run on a laptop or in a chat window. They are not on all the time, and they have no web address of their own.

If a message arrives while your agent is off, it can be lost. Some services try again later. Some do not.

What hookinlet does

hookinlet works like a mailbox for your agent. It gives you an address that is always online, so services have somewhere to deliver.

When a message arrives, hookinlet checks that it really came from the service it says it came from. Then it keeps the message, in the order it arrived.

Your agent reads the messages when it is ready. Each time, it picks up where it stopped.

For example, a customer's payment fails. Stripe sends a message, and hookinlet keeps it. The next time your agent runs, it reads the message and drafts an email to the customer.

How to start

Today, hookinlet is software you run yourself, on a computer that stays on.

If you already set up software by typing commands, the documentation gets a first message through in a few of them. If you would rather not, there are two ways to start:

• Ask someone who has set up software on a server to do it once for you.
• Ask your AI assistant to walk you through it. Paste this message to it:

Help me set up hookinlet so my agent can receive webhooks from [the service I use]. Read https://hookinlet.com/docs/quickstart.md first. Then ask me what you need to know before you run anything.

Your assistant will need to run commands on a computer. Each time it asks, read what it plans to run before you say yes.

We also plan a hosted version, where we run hookinlet for you. It is not built yet. Join the waitlist and tell us what you would use it for.

Is it safe

Your hookinlet address is like a mailbox on the street. Anyone who learns the address can drop a message in.

So hookinlet checks every message with a secret that only you and the service know, a bit like a password the two of you share. It refuses any message that fails the check.

A message that passes the check is still text written by someone else. It can include words typed by a customer, a stranger, or anyone else using that service.

Tell your agent to treat every message as information to read, never as instructions to follow. This is the most important rule on this page.