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Shopify Webhook

TL;DR

To integrate Shopify webhooks with ngrok:

  1. Launch your local webhook. npm start
  2. Launch ngrok. ngrok http 3000
  3. Configure Shopify 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 Shopify by using Webhooks. Shopify webhooks can be used to notify an external application whenever specific events occur in your Shopify store.

By integrating ngrok with Shopify, you can:

  • Develop and test Shopify 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 Shopify in real-time via the inspection UI and API.
  • Modify and Replay Shopify Webhook requests with a single click and without spending time reproducing events manually in your Shopify store.
  • Secure your app with Shopify validation provided by ngrok. Invalid requests are blocked by ngrok before reaching your app.
TL;DR

  1. Launch your local webhook. npm start

  2. Launch ngrok. ngrok http 3000

  3. Configure Shopify webhooks with your ngrok URL.

  4. Bonus! Secure your webhook requests with verification.

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 Shopify). ngrok agent running

Step 3: Integrate Shopify​

To register a webhook to your Shopify store follow the instructions below:

  1. Sign in to your Shopify account, select your store, and then click Settings at the bottom of the left menu on the admin page.

  2. In the Settings page, click Notifications in the left menu, scroll down to the Webhooks section and then click Create webhook.

  3. In the Add webhook popup, select Product creation for the Event field and make sure JSON is selected as the Format.

  4. 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). Configure URL

  5. For the Webhook API version field, select any value containing the (Latest) text and then click Save.

  6. Optionally, in the Webhooks section, Shopify shows a key that will be used to sign all calls to your application. Make a copy of this value for later use.

Run Webhooks with Shopify and ngrok​

The Webhooks section allows you to test your Webhook by clicking the Send test notification button. Use this feature to send a test notification to your application through ngrok.

Because you registered your webhook for the Product creation event, any product you create triggers a notification to your application. Create a product following the instructions below:

  1. Access your Shopify store admin page, click Products in the left menu, and then click Add product on the Products page.

  2. In the Add product page, provide a Title for the product, a Price, an SKU value, and then click Save at the bottom of the page.

Confirm your localhost app receives notifications about the product you've just created.

Tip: Shopify sends different request body contents depending on the event you select during the webhook registration.

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 Shopify's webhooks call, launch the ngrok web interface (i.e. http://127.0.0.1:4040), and then click one of the requests sent by Shopify.

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 the need to trigger new events from Shopify. To replay a request:

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

  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. For example, you can modify the id of the body of the request.

  4. Click Replay.

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

Secure webhook requests​

The ngrok signature webhook verification feature allows ngrok to assert that requests from your Shopify 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.

This is a quick step to add extra protection to your application.

  1. In the Webhooks section of the Notifications page, Shopify shows a value after the All your webhooks will be signed with message. Copy this value.

  2. Restart your ngrok agent by running the command, replacing {your signing secret} with the value you copied before:

    ngrok http 3000 --verify-webhook shopify --verify-webhook-secret {your signing secret}

  3. Access your Shopify store admin page, click Products in the left menu, and then create a new product.

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