Support for Outbound Webhooks

[Half-Shot]

Some users want bi-directional hookshottin', where messages from Matrix are sent along to a remote platform. So, this is the plan.

A new connection type called "Outbound Generic Webhooks" will be setup, with a very similar structure to the incoming webhooks. The default payload will be a JSON message containing the Matrix event structure.

The request will be a simple PUT to the URL specified in the state. There will be a X-Matrix-Hookshot-EventId header containing the event ID, as well as a as-yet-unspecified authentication token header. The token will given once during creation and can be refreshed, and will be given on each request.

Requests will be retried in a limited sense on failure, the limits will be configurable but the defaults will be to retry up to 5 times (in increasing delays) to hit the service. With Redis mode on, there may be the possibility of batching up events to send later but this is probably not part of the V1 feature.

For media messages, the payload will include the media (hookshot will download, and if required, decrypt it) as a blob on the upload. The default solution will be to include it as part of a multi-part response, where the JSON and the media will be separate parts.

Finally, it goes without saying this is not intended to be a replacement for Appservices which is a far more powerful and effective API for building proper Matrix integrations. However, if the platform you are integrating to is extremely limited then this may be an effective starting point.