Webhook Idempotency: How to Handle Duplicate Events Without Breaking Your System

2026-07-22 #webhooks, #engineering, #best-practices

Why Duplicate Webhooks Are Inevitable

Every major webhook provider uses at-least-once delivery semantics. Duplicates are a feature, not a bug.

What Happens Without Idempotency

Multiple charge records, duplicate emails, inflated metrics, race conditions.

The Core Pattern: Event ID Deduplication

Use a processed-events table with atomic INSERT to gate processing.

Try reqdump — capture, inspect, and replay webhooks