POINTCAST FIELD NOTES / 01

A small signal,
a useful action.

What if the things we make could tell each other when something changes?

A FRIENDLY GUIDE TO WEBHOOKS / 8 MIN READ

Start with the idea

ILLUSTRATION 01 / THE SIGNAL & THE NEIGHBOR

A webhook is a little note that says: “Something happened.”

Imagine a story is published. Instead of another site checking every minute for news, the publisher can send a message when the story is ready. A receiver checks the message and decides what to do next.

That note is a webhook: an HTTP message sent by one system to another when an event occurs. The message is useful because the two sides agree in advance on its shape, its sender, and what it means.

Not every signal is a webhook. An internal event stays inside a system; scheduled polling asks for changes on a timer. A demo shows an idea without a connection. An implemented adapter is code for a particular integration; a live connection is actually configured and operating. These are different stages.

THE JOURNEY / THREE PARTS

From here to there.

A sender notices a change. A small envelope describes it. A receiver verifies it before deciding whether to act.

Sender: something happens. Message: a small envelope. Receiver: verify, then act.

Delivery can happen more than once. The receiver needs a durable way to recognize an event it has already handled.

TRY IT / NOTHING IS SENT

Open the envelope.

Choose a proposed contract and run its fictional example. Five produce actual synthetic artifacts in this page; the other 95 check the envelope only and say their action is not implemented. Nothing is sent, published, or stored beyond this page session.

The demo remembers IDs only while this page is open. Reset clears that memory; a real receiver needs authentication, freshness checks, durable deduplication and authorization.

PROPOSED CONTRACT

Inspect the fixed fictional input

{
  "title": "Fictional garden brief",
  "excerpt": "A fictional neighborhood group imagines a shared garden.",
  "url": "https://example.org/fictional-garden-brief"
}

EXAMPLE ENVELOPE / JSON

Ready to run locally.

THE HONEST STATUS

100 ideas.
Zero live connections.

Below is a map of proposed internal events across ten parts of the ecosystem. These are contracts to design and review—not a claim that the sites already emit them or that a webhook connection is active.

Each entry names a possible source, destination and action. No connector has credentials, a schedule, or a public relay here. Public changes require human review. External services that need new access remain blocked.

Our neutral versioned envelope could later refer to a receipt after separate review. A message or receipt alone does not establish blockchain finality.

Read the machine-readable catalog ↗

A CATALOG FOR A CONNECTED TOWN

One hundred
possible signals.

Search by name, action, or place. Open a row to see the proposal. All are planned and disabled.

SEARCH THE CATALOGPLACE

100 proposed contracts

001PointCastDraft a story and evidence ledgerpointcast.source.accepted.v1PLANNED

When: source accepted
From: PointCast editorial → To: PointCast discovery

Trigger: proposed internal event · Connection: disabled · Demo: synthetic artifact available · Privacy: public metadata only

Approval: Human review before any public change; no automatic publishing. Dependencies: source event producer, destination adapter, authentication and authorization, durable deduplication.

Deduplication: source + event_id; durable atomic claim required before effects. Cost: No recurring cost while disabled; execution costs depend on hosting and volume.

From here to there.

Open the envelope.

100 ideas.Zero live connections.

One hundredpossible signals.

Small messages.Thoughtful connections.

100 ideas.
Zero live connections.

One hundred
possible signals.

Small messages.
Thoughtful connections.