Event Types

Each message sent through Svix has an associated event type. Event types are identifiers denoting the type of message being sent and are the primary way for webhook consumers to configure what events they are interested in receiving.

Event types are just a string, for example: user.signup, invoice.paid and workflow.completed.

Webhook consumers can choose which events are sent to which endpoint. By default, all messages are sent to all endpoints. Though when adding or editing endpoints, users can choose to only subscribe to some of the event types for this particular endpoint.

Bulk Create

It's recommended to add the event types you are going to use ahead of time. You can do it using the scripts in the bulk creating event types section.

What your users will see

This is how choosing event types look like in the pre-built application portal:

Event Type Format

Event types have a pattern defined a ^[a-zA-Z0-9\\-_.]+$, meaning it can contain any of the following characters:

• A through Z (uppercase or lowercase)
• 0 through 9
• Special characters: -, _, .

Style guide

We recommend you use period-delimited event type names (e.g. <group>.<event>). If you do, the App Portal UI will logically group them for your users and make it easier for them to subscribe an endpoint to all events in a particular group of event types.

Using event types

You can add, edit, and delete event types in the dashboard or through the API below.

JavaScript

import { Svix } from "svix";

const svix = new Svix("AUTH_TOKEN");
const eventType = await svix.eventType.create({
  name: "user.signup",
  description: "A user has signed up",
});

Python

from svix.api import Svix, EventTypeIn

svix = Svix("AUTH_TOKEN")
app = svix.event_type.create(EventTypeIn(
    name="user.signup",
    description="A user has signed up"
))

Rust

import (
    svix "github.com/svix/svix-webhooks/go"
)

svixClient := svix.New("AUTH_TOKEN", nil)
app, err := svixClient.EventType.Create(&svix.EventTypeIn{
    Name: "user.signup",
    Description: "A user has signed up",
})}

Go

use svix::api::{ApplicationIn, Svix, SvixOptions};

let svix = Svix::new("AUTH_TOKEN".to_string(), None);
let event_type = svix.event_type().create(EventTypeIn {
    name: "user.signup".to_string(),
    description: "A user has signed up".to_string(),
    ..EventTypeIn::default()
}).await?;

Java

import com.svix.Svix;
import com.svix.models.EventTypeIn;


Svix svix = new Svix("AUTH_TOKEN");
svix.getEventType()
  .create(new EventTypeIn()
    .name("user.signup")
    .description("A user has signed up")
  );

Kotlin

import com.svix.kotlin.Svix;
import com.svix.kotlin.models.EventTypeIn;

val svix = Svix("AUTH_TOKEN");
svix.eventType.create(
                EventTypeIn(
                    name = "user.signup",
                    description = "A user has signed up",
                ));

Ruby

svix = Svix::Client.new("AUTH_TOKEN")
svix.event_type.create(Svix::EventTypeIn.new({
        "name" => "user.signup",
        "description" => "A user has signed up"}))

C#

var svix = new SvixClient("AUTH_TOKEN", new SvixOptions("https://api.svix.com"));
await svix.EventType.CreateAsync(new EventTypeIn(
    name: "user.signup",
    description: "A user has signed up"
))

CLI

export SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN='AUTH_TOKEN'
svix event-type create '{ "name": "user.signup", "description": "A user has signed up" }'

cURL

export SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN='AUTH_TOKEN'

curl -X POST "https://api.svix.com/api/v1/event-type/" \
    -H  "Accept: application/json" \
    -H  "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H  "Authorization: Bearer ${SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN}" \
    -d '{ "name": "user.signup", "description": "A user has signed up" }'

Event Type Schema

One of the best ways to help your users integrate with you is by defining schemas for your event types. Event type schemas allow your users to anticipate the shape of the message body they will receive as well as introduce guardrails for each data type.

Schemas can be created using our visual schema editor, or by providing your own JSONSchema (Draft 7) spec.

Once you have a schema defined, your users will be able to view the schema definition as well as an example event from the Event Catalog in the App Portal.

To learn more about creating schemas, check out our guide on adding your first event type schema.

Bulk creating event types

The easiest way to bulk-create event types is by just writing a simple script to load a pipe delimited CSV file or a JSON file with the event types and make the API requests.

Here is an example CSV file (without headers) of events:

user.created|A user has been created
user.removed|A user has been removed
user.changed|A user has changed

Here are some example scripts for processing the above file:

JavaScript

import { Svix } from "svix";
import fs from "fs";
import readline from "readline";

const svix = new Svix("AUTH_TOKEN");

async function execute() {
  const fileStream = fs.createReadStream("./data.csv");

  const data = readline.createInterface({
    input: fileStream,
    crlfDelay: Infinity,
  });

  for await (const lineItr of data) {
    const line = lineItr.split("|");
    const eventType = await svix.eventType.create({
      name: line[0],
      description: line[1],
    });
  }
}

execute();

Python

import json
from svix.api import Svix, EventTypeIn

svix = Svix("AUTH_TOKEN")

with open("./data.csv", "r") as f:
    for line in f:
        name, description = line.split("|")
        app = svix.event_type.create(EventTypeIn(
            name=name,
            description=description,
        ))

Rust

package main

import (
    "bufio"
    "log"
    "os"
    "strings"

    svix "github.com/svix/svix-webhooks/go"
)

func main() {
    svixClient := svix.New("AUTH_TOKEN", nil)

    f, err := os.Open("./data.csv")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer f.Close()

    scanner := bufio.NewScanner(f)
    for scanner.Scan() {
        line := strings.Split(scanner.Text(), "|")
        _, err = svixClient.EventType.Create(&svix.EventTypeIn{
            Name:        line[0],
            Description: line[1],
        })
        if err != nil {
            log.Println(err)
        }
    }
    if err := scanner.Err(); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

Go

// Example TBD
// Read the CSV and create event types

Java

package sviximport;

import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Scanner;
import com.svix.Svix;
import com.svix.models.EventTypeIn;
import com.svix.exceptions.ApiException;

public class App {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Svix svix = new Svix("AUTH_TOKEN");

        try (Scanner scanner = new Scanner(new FileReader("/path/to/data.csv"));) {
            while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
                try {
                    String[] line = scanner.nextLine().split("|");
                    svix.getEventType().create(new EventTypeIn().name(line[0]).description(line[1]));
                } catch(ApiException e) {
                    if (e.getCode() != 409) {
                        System.out.println(e.getResponseBody());
                        System.exit(1);
                    }
                }
            }
        } catch(IOException e) {
            System.out.println(e.toString());
            System.exit(1);
        }
    }
}

Kotlin

package sviximport

import com.svix.kotlin.Svix
import com.svix.kotlin.models.EventTypeIn
import com.svix.kotlin.exceptions.ApiException
import java.io.File
import java.io.IOException
import kotlinx.coroutines.runBlocking
import kotlin.system.exitProcess

fun main() = runBlocking {
    val svix = Svix("AUTH_TOKEN")
    try {
        File("/path/to/data.csv").useLines { lines ->
            lines.forEach {
                try {
                    val line = it.split("|")
                    svix.eventType.create(EventTypeIn(
                        name = line[0],
                        description = line[1]
                    ))
                } catch (e: ApiException) {
                    println(e.message)
                    exitProcess(1)
                }
            }
        }
    } catch (e: IOException) {
        println(e.toString())
        exitProcess(1)
    }
}

Ruby

require "svix"
require "csv"

svix = Svix::Client.new("AUTH_TOKEN")

CSV.foreach('data.csv', {:col_sep => "|"}) do |line|
    event_type = svix.event_type.create(Svix::EventTypeIn.new({
        "name" => line[0],
        "description" => line[1]}))
end

C#

// Example TBD
// Read the CSV and create event types

CLI

export SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN='AUTH_TOKEN'

while IFS=$'|', read -r name description
do
    svix event-type create "{ \"name\": \"${name}\", \"description\": \"${description}\" }"
done < data.csv

cURL

export SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN='AUTH_TOKEN'

while IFS=$'|', read -r name description
do
    curl -X POST "https://api.svix.com/api/v1/event-type/" \
        -H  "Accept: application/json" \
        -H  "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -H  "Authorization: Bearer ${SVIX_AUTH_TOKEN}" \
        -d  "{ \"name\": \"${name}\", \"description\": \"${description}\" }"
done < data.csv

Publishing your Event Catalog

By default, your event types are only accessible to users from within an authenticated session on the Application Portal.

If you would like to have them publicly accessible, you can enable the "Make Publish" setting from the Event Catalog configuration screen in the Dashboard settings.

Enabling this setting will cause your event types to be statically served on svix.com. You can link or embed that site within your own documentation.

Configuration Options

• Make Public: Whether or not the Event Catalog will be publicly accessible from svix.com.
• Display Name: Required to make your Event Catalog public. The display name will be shown in the heading of the published page. It should be the name of your company or product.

What it looks like