Ben's message on Hipchat was an @all notification as he introduced the webhook functionality for Alerts. Since releasing the database alerts, customer usage of the functionality is beyond our expectations. Many folks had one more feature request: webhooks. Some used "webhooks" by name, others said, "Can I have the alert post data to a URL via HTTP?".

Ben is the mastermind of the Alerts feature; thus, he bolted on webhooks -- rather quickly I must say. Other than "anything", common uses for these webhooks are:

• Performing custom internal actions based on notifications (i.e. open a Pivotal Tracker issue to determine the cause)
• Storing and reporting on triggered alerts on your database
• Adding annotations to internal metrics
• Posting to internal chatrooms
• Program an Arduino to raise a red flag when an alert is triggered
• And, ummm, anything.

You could even do all of the above by accepting the message, and routing to your different platforms.

Turn on Webhook Alerts Now!

Why? Because they are awesome! See the Webhook Alert documentation page for more information.