Webhooks Overview

Max Baehr
7 min read
Example Application

If you'd like to build your own consumer for Frame.io Webhooks, feel free to grab and extend our example app on Github.

Introduction

Webhooks provide a way to leverage events that occur inside of Frame.io into notifications that can be sent to external systems for processing, API callbacks, and ultimately, workflow automation.

Setup

Webhooks can be configured in the Webhooks area of our developer site. A Webhook requires:

  • Name — Will be shown on the developer site only.
  • URL — Where to deliver events.
  • Team — Which team this webhook will be added to.
  • Events — Which event, or events, should trigger the Webhook.

Supported events

A single Webhook can subscribe to any number of the following events:

Projects

EventTrigger
project.createdA new Project is created
project.updatedA Project's settings are updated
project.deletedA Project is deleted

Assets

EventTrigger
asset.createdAn Asset is first added/created in Frame.io, but likely before the asset is fully uploaded
asset.copiedAn Asset has been copied
asset.updatedAn Asset's description, name, or other file information is changed
asset.deletedAn Asset is deleted (manually or otherwise)
asset.readyAll transcodes have completed, after an Asset has been uploaded and processed
asset.label.updatedAn Asset's status label is set, changed, or removed
asset.versionedAn asset is versioned
Asset Versioning

When the asset.versioned event fires, you're going to receive a payload with the id of the asset that was versioned, not the version stack itself. So if you expect to be able to pass that id along to another function thinking it's the version stack's id, you're going to have to look-up and track down that particular 'parent' resource first.

Asset Label updates

The asset.label.updated event will not fire when the status label is changed via a PUT call to the /v2/assets/:id endpoint via the public API (BES-408). It will however fire when the status label is updated using any native Frame.io apps and integrations (Web, iOS, Premiere, After Effects, FCPX, etc).

Comments

EventTrigger
comment.createdA new Comment or Reply is created
comment.updatedA Comment is edited
comment.deletedA Comment is deleted
comment.completedA Comment is completed
comment.uncompletedA Comment is uncompleted

Collaborators

EventTrigger
collaborator.createdA Collaborator has been added to your Account
collaborator.deletedA Collaborator has been removed from your Account

Team Members

EventTrigger
teammember.createdA Team Member has been added to your Account
teammember.deletedA Team Member has been removed from your Account

Payload

Frame.io delivers a JSON payload to the specified webhook endpoint. Here's an example payload for an asset.created event:

JSON
{
  "type": "asset.created",
  "resource": {
    "type": "asset",
    "id": "<asset-id>"
  },
  "user": {
    "id": "<user-id>"
  },
  "team": {
    "id": "<team-id>"
  }
}

All payloads contain a type field, indicating the type of event occurring, as well as a resource object. The resource object specifies the type and id of the resource related to this event.

In the above example of an asset.created event, this would be the id for the newly created Asset. Additionally, user and team objects are included. These reference the User who triggered the event, and the Team context for the resource.

Aside from the immediate User and Team context, we do not include any additional information about the subscribed resource. If your application requires additional information or context, we recommend using our HTTP API to make follow-up requests.

Retries

Should an error (non-200 status code response) or timeout occur while delivering the webhook to your service, the payload will be retried three times, for a total of four delivery attempts.

Security

By default, all Webhooks are provided with a signing key. This is not configurable. This key can be used to verify that the request originates from Frame.io.

Verify Webhook Signatures

To guard an integration against man-in-the-middle and replay attacks it is essential to verify webhook signatures. Verification ensures that webhook payloads were actually sent by Frame.io and payload content has not been modified in transport.

Included in the POST request are the following headers:

NameDescription
X-Frameio-Request-TimestampThe time of Webhook delivery
X-Frameio-SignatureThe computed signature

The timestamp is the time of delivery from Frame.io's systems. This can be used to prevent replay attacks. We recommended verifying this time is within 5 minutes of local time.

The signature is a HMAC SHA256 hash using the signing key provided when the Webhook is first created.

Follow these steps to verify the signature:

  1. Extract the signature from the HTTP headers
  2. Create a message to sign by combining the version, delivery time, and request body: v0:timestamp:body
  3. Compute the HMAC SHA256 signature using your signing secret. Note: The provided signature is prefixed with v0=. Currently Frame.io only has this one version for signing requests. Be sure this prefix is prepended to your computed signature.
  4. Compare!
JavaScript
Go
const crypto = require('crypto');

// Capture the signature, secret, timestamp and payload from a new webhook event:
const 
signature = 'v0=a77ce6856e609c884575c2fd211d07a9ad1c3f72e19c06ff710e8f086ffca883', 
secret = 'yxSE59T0gtZOFZxw6UhLwTkhd2m8ntNSdSWnApQ0xOnMEzSoXbD8sGFP4bzb7MbS',
timestamp = 1604004499,  // UNIX timestamp in seconds
payload = {
	"project": {
		"id": "f348e9f4-f142-42f9-b3bf-478d93f0feb4"
	},
	"resource": {
		"id": "6aad9151-c216-4d6f-b5e9-530df551a426",
		"type": "asset"
	},
	"team": {
		"id": "aa891687-4b1e-4150-9b6d-9e4911c5b436"
	},
	"type": "asset.label.updated",
	"user": {
		"id": "59c9ade1-311b-4c3b-8231-b9d88e9a1a85"
	}
},
body = JSON.stringify(payload),

// Validate that caught payload is not older than 5 minutes
currentTimeUTC = (new Date()).getTime(),
currentTimestamp = currentTimeUTC / 1000, // JavaScript uses milliseconds whereas Unix Time is in seconds.
minutes = 5, 
expired = (currentTimestamp - timestamp) > minutes*60
hmac1 = crypto.createHmac('sha256', secret),
generateSignature = hmac1.update(`v0:${timestamp}:${body}`).digest('hex')

// Evaluates to true if the webhook is verified
console.log(!expired && signature === `v0=${generateSignature}`)