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Bitbucket Repository Webhooks

TL;DR

To integrate Bitbucket webhooks with ngrok:

  1. Launch your local webhook. npm start
  2. Launch ngrok. ngrok http 3000
  3. Configure Bitbucket webhooks with your ngrok URL.
  4. Secure your webhook requests with verification.

This guide covers how to use ngrok to integrate your localhost app with Bitbucket to allow Bitbucket to send notifications to your app anytime an event takes place in a Bitbucket repository.

By integrating ngrok with Bitbucket, you can:

  • Develop and test Bitbucket webhooks locally, eliminating the time in deploying your development code to a public environment and setting it up in HTTPS.
  • Inspect and troubleshoot requests from Bitbucket in real-time via the inspection UI and API.
  • Modify and Replay Bitbucket Webhook requests with a single click and without spending time reproducing events manually in your Bitbucket account.

Step 1: Start your app​

For this tutorial, we'll use the sample NodeJS app available on GitHub.

To install this sample, run the following commands in a terminal:

git clone https://github.com/ngrok/ngrok-webhook-nodejs-sample.git
cd ngrok-webhook-nodejs-sample
npm install

This will get the project installed locally.

Now you can launch the app by running the following command:

npm start

The app runs by default on port 3000.

You can validate that the app is up and running by visiting http://localhost:3000. The application logs request headers and body in the terminal and responds with a message in the browser.

Step 2: Launch ngrok​

Once your app is running successfully on localhost, let's get it on the internet securely using ngrok!

  1. If you're not an ngrok user yet, just sign up for ngrok for free.

  2. Download the ngrok agent.

  3. Go to the ngrok dashboard and copy your Authtoken.
    Tip: The ngrok agent uses the auth token to log into your account when you start a tunnel.

  4. Start ngrok by running the following command:

    ngrok http 3000

  5. ngrok will display a URL where your localhost application is exposed to the internet (copy this URL for use with Bitbucket). ngrok agent running

Step 3: Integrate Bitbucket​

Bitbucket can trigger webhook calls to external applications whenever events happen in a repository. To register for such events, follow the instructions below:

  1. Access Bitbucket and sign in using your Bitbucket account.

  2. Click Repositories on the top menu and click the name of a repository from the repository list. Tip: If you don't have a repository, create a new empty one.

  3. In the repository page, click Repository settings from the left menu and then click Webhooks.

  4. On the Webhooks page, click Add webhook.

  5. On the Add new webhook page, enter a Title for your webhook and in the URL field enter the URL provided by the ngrok agent to expose your application to the internet (i.e., https://1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7g8h-9i0j.sa.ngrok.io). URL

  6. Mark the Push checkbox under the Triggers section and then click Save at the bottom of the page.

Run Webhooks with Bitbucket and ngrok​

Because you've selected the Push event as the trigger for your webhook, Bitbucket will submit a post request to your application through ngrok whenever you push content to your repository. Note: Different messages are sent to your application depending on the trigger event you choose.

Follow the instructions below to add some content to your repository:

  1. Click the name of your repository at the top of the left menu.

  2. On the project's page, click ... and then click Add file.

  3. In the Source page, enter a name for the file in the Filename field, and enter the following content to the file in the textbox: This is my new file content.

  4. Click Commit, and then click Commit in the Commit changes popup.

    Confirm your localhost app receives the push event notification and logs both headers and body to the terminal.

Alternatively, clone your repository locally, add some content, commit, and then push the content to your repostiory on Bitbucket: bash git add .; git commit -m "my first commit"; git push

Inspecting requests​

When you launch the ngrok agent on your local machine, you can see two links:

  • The URL to your app (it ends with ngrok-free.app for free accounts or ngrok.app for paid accounts when not using custom domains)
  • A local URL for the Web Interface (a.k.a Request Inspector).

The Request Inspector shows all the requests made through your ngrok tunnel to your localhost app. When you click on a request, you can see details of both the request and the response.

Seeing requests is an excellent way of validating the data sent to and retrieved by your app via the ngrok tunnel. That alone can save you some time dissecting and logging HTTP request and response headers, methods, bodies, and response codes within your app just to confirm you are getting what you expect.

To inspect Bitbucket's event requests, launch the ngrok web interface (i.e. http://127.0.0.1:4040), and then click one of the requests sent by Bitbucket.

From the results, review the response body, header, and other details:

ngrok Request Inspector

Replaying requests​

The ngrok Request Inspector provides a replay function that you can use to test your code without retriggering new events from Bitbucket. To replay a request:

  1. In the ngrok inspection interface (i.e., http://localhost:4040), select a request from Bitbucket.

  2. Click Replay to execute the same request to your application or select Replay with modifications to modify the content of the original request before sending the request.

  3. If you choose to Replay with modifications, you can modify any content from the original request. Optionally, modify the request header with different content. For example, modify the X-Bitbucket-Event header with the value MyCustomPush.

  4. If you choose to Replay with modifications, you can modify any content from the original request. For example, you can modify the user_name field in the body request.

  5. Click Replay.

Verify that your local application receives the request and logs the corresponding information to the terminal.

Secure webhook requests​

THe following are quick steps to add extra protection to your application.

  • If you are running Bitbucket Cloud, use ngrok IP Restrictions to allow ingress access for a list of IP addresses.

    Note: This feature requires ngrok Pro or Enterprise plan.

    1. You can find a list of CloudFront IP Addresses used by Bitbucket Cloud in the Bitbucket Support documents.

    2. Go to the ngrok dashboard, sign in, click Security in the left menu, and then click IP Restrictions.

    3. In the Agent section, click Attach IP Policies, click New IP Policy, and then click Add Rule.

    4. In the Add Rule section, click Allow and then enter the CIDR that covers the IP Address from Bitbucket (i.e 123.456.789.1/32) in the CIDR field.

    5. Enter a Description for both the rule and the policy, click Save, and then click Attach IP Policy.

    6. On the IP Restrictions page, click Save.

  • If you are running Bitbucket Server, ngrok signature webhook verification feature to allow ngrok to assert that requests from your Bitbucket webhook are the only traffic allowed to make calls to your localhost app.

    Note: This ngrok feature is limited to 500 validations per month on free ngrok accounts. For unlimited, upgrade to Pro or Enterprise.

    1. Access your Bitbucket repository, navigate through the interface to the webhook page, and then edit the webhook.

    2. In the Authentication section, select Secret token as the method, and then enter a value for the secret token.

    3. Restart your ngrok agent by running the command, replacing {your secret token} with the value you entered before:

    ngrok http 3000 --verify-webhook bitbucket --verify-webhook-secret {your secret token}
    1. Access your repository, add a new file and then commit the file.

    Verify that your local application receives the request and logs information to the terminal.