How to send events to an HTTP source to power Knock

The HTTP source creates a generic event ingestion endpoint that you can use to stream events from your service, or a third-party platform into Knock. The events you stream into the HTTP source can then be used to trigger Knock notification workflows via configured action mappings.

Knock can receive any structured event data via the HTTP source, as long as you can format JSON and make an HTTP request from the service that produces or consumes events.

Getting started

To get started you can create a new HTTP source by going to Integrations > Sources and clicking "Create source." You'll have the opportunity to name the HTTP source and give it a description.

Once your source is created, you'll have a unique ingestion endpoint per environment to send events to. You can get each environment's endpoint by clicking the "Copy webhook destination URL" button.

Sending event data

To start sending events to Knock, you'll need to structure a JSON payload that matches the event schema to the ingestion endpoint and submit the request via a POST action. A well-formed event payload will be accepted with a 204 response code.

You'll also need to send the following headers with your request:

Please note: you'll need to send a single event at a time. There's currently no batch event ingestion endpoint.

Event schema

Your events must be structured as JSON with the following schema:

NameTypeDescription
typestring (required)The type of event to send. Must be set to track.
eventstring (required)The name of the event you're sending to Knock.
propertiesmapA set of properties associated with the event.
userIdstringAn optional userId to be used as the recipient or actor for the triggered workflow.
messageIdstringAn optional unique identifier for the event message, to be used as a deduplication key.
timestampstringAn optional ISO-8601 timestamp indicating when the event occurred. If omitted, will default to the time of ingestion.

Triggering workflows from received events

Received events can be mapped to corresponding workflow triggers via Event actions under each environment's configured source.

Read more on configuring event action mappings

Mapping workflow trigger properties

When creating event actions from your events, you can optionally configure the schema mapping Knock will use to map your event properties into the corresponding workflow trigger properties.

To target any items under the properties key, prefix the schema mapping with data.propertyKey. As an example, if you have a property properties.recipientId you would map this as data.recipientId.

Debugging events

You can see a log of all of the events received per source under Developers > Sources in the Knock dashboard under the "Logs" page for your configured source. You can also see any event actions that were triggered as part of the event ingestion, and any workflow runs that were triggered.

Frequently asked questions