Receive Email Webhooks in Ruby

Quick Start: Ruby Email Webhook

JsonHook delivers every inbound email as a JSON POST request to your webhook endpoint. Setting up a Ruby handler takes less than 5 minutes. Start by initializing your project:

gem install sinatra

Then create your webhook endpoint. The following example shows the minimal code needed to receive and acknowledge a JsonHook delivery:

require 'sinatra'
require 'json'

post '/webhook' do
  payload = JSON.parse(request.body.read)
  puts "Email from: #{payload['email']['from']}"
  puts "Subject: #{payload['email']['subject']}"
  status 200
end

Point your JsonHook address webhook URL to this endpoint and you will start receiving parsed emails as JSON within seconds of the email arriving.

Full Ruby Implementation

The quick start example above is enough to get started, but a production implementation should include signature verification, structured error handling, and proper HTTP response codes. The complete example below demonstrates all of these patterns together.

This implementation verifies the X-JsonHook-Signature header to confirm the request genuinely came from JsonHook, parses the full email payload, and returns the appropriate HTTP status codes to trigger or suppress retries.

require 'sinatra'
require 'json'
require 'openssl'

WEBHOOK_SECRET = ENV['JSONHOOK_WEBHOOK_SECRET']

helpers do
  def verify_signature(raw_body, signature_header)
    return false if signature_header.nil? || signature_header.empty?
    computed = OpenSSL::HMAC.hexdigest('SHA256', WEBHOOK_SECRET, raw_body)
    # Rack::Utils.secure_compare is constant-time
    Rack::Utils.secure_compare(computed, signature_header)
  end
end

post '/webhook' do
  raw_body = request.body.read
  signature = request.env['HTTP_X_JSONHOOK_SIGNATURE'] || ''

  unless verify_signature(raw_body, signature)
    logger.warn 'Invalid JsonHook signature'
    halt 401, { error: 'Unauthorized' }.to_json
  end

  payload = JSON.parse(raw_body)
  email   = payload['email']

  logger.info "[#{payload['timestamp']}] Email at #{payload['address']}"
  logger.info "From: #{email['from']} | Subject: #{email['subject']}"

  (email['attachments'] || []).each do |att|
    logger.info "Attachment: #{att['filename']} (#{att['size']} bytes)"
  end

  status 200
  { status: 'ok' }.to_json
end

The webhook handler returns 200 immediately after queuing the email for processing. Avoid doing expensive work (database writes, API calls) synchronously inside the handler — process the payload in a background job to stay within JsonHook's 10-second response timeout.

Parsing the Webhook Payload

Every JsonHook delivery is an HTTP POST with Content-Type: application/json. The payload follows a consistent schema regardless of the originating email client or provider:

raw_body = request.body.read
payload = JSON.parse(raw_body)

# Top-level fields
event     = payload['event']      # "email.received"
timestamp = payload['timestamp']  # "2026-03-15T12:34:56.789Z"
address   = payload['address']    # "[email protected]"

# Email fields
email     = payload['email']
from      = email['from']         # "Alice "
to        = email['to']           # Array of strings
subject   = email['subject']
text_body = email['textBody']
html_body = email['htmlBody']

# Attachments
email['attachments']&.each do |att|
  puts "#{att['filename']} (#{att['contentType']}, #{att['size']} bytes)"
end

Key fields in the payload:

• event — Always "email.received" for inbound email events
• timestamp — ISO 8601 timestamp of when JsonHook received the email
• address — The JsonHook inbound address that received the email (e.g., [email protected])
• email.from — Sender address string, e.g., "Alice <[email protected]>"
• email.to — Array of recipient address strings
• email.subject — Email subject line
• email.textBody — Plain text body of the email (may be empty if HTML-only)
• email.htmlBody — HTML body of the email (may be empty if plain-text-only)
• email.attachments — Array of attachment objects, each with filename, contentType, size, and contentId

Verifying Webhook Signatures

JsonHook signs every webhook delivery using HMAC-SHA256. The signature is included in the X-JsonHook-Signature request header as a hex digest. To verify it, compute the HMAC-SHA256 of the raw request body using your address's webhook secret and compare it to the header value.

Your webhook secret is returned when you create an inbound address via the API (POST /api/addresses). Store it as an environment variable — never hard-code it.

require 'openssl'

def verify_jsonhook_signature(raw_body, signature_header, secret)
  return false if signature_header.nil? || secret.nil?
  computed = OpenSSL::HMAC.hexdigest('SHA256', secret, raw_body)
  # Rack::Utils.secure_compare is a constant-time string comparison
  Rack::Utils.secure_compare(computed, signature_header)
end

# Usage in Sinatra:
# raw_body = request.body.read
# sig = request.env['HTTP_X_JSONHOOK_SIGNATURE'] || ''
# halt 401 unless verify_jsonhook_signature(raw_body, sig, WEBHOOK_SECRET)

Always verify the signature before processing the payload. Return 401 for invalid signatures so that legitimate retries from JsonHook (which always include a valid signature) are distinguishable from spoofed requests.

Error Handling Best Practices

Reliable webhook handling requires careful attention to error responses. JsonHook uses your HTTP response code to decide whether to retry a delivery:

• Return 200 quickly: Acknowledge receipt immediately and process asynchronously. JsonHook will retry any non-2xx response.
• Return 400 for bad requests: If the payload fails your own validation (not signature — use 401 for that), return 400 to prevent retries of malformed deliveries.
• Return 500 to trigger retries: If your downstream system is temporarily unavailable, returning 500 causes JsonHook to retry with exponential backoff (up to 5 attempts over ~1 hour).
• Never return 200 before verifying the signature: Doing so silently accepts spoofed requests.

Ruby ecosystem tips:

• Call request.body.read once and store the result — it returns an IO object that cannot be rewound by default in Sinatra
• Use Rack::Utils.secure_compare for signature comparison — it is available without additional gems and is constant-time
• In Rails, use request.raw_post to access the raw request body; Rails parses JSON bodies automatically so you must read the raw post data separately
• Use Sidekiq or Delayed::Job to push email processing into a background queue after sending the 200 response

Ruby Ecosystem Tips

The Ruby ecosystem offers several libraries and patterns that pair well with JsonHook webhook handling. Here are general recommendations:

• Use a well-maintained HTTP server library appropriate for your use case — the examples in this guide use the most common choice, but any library that gives you raw body access works.
• Store your webhook secret in an environment variable and load it via your language's standard env access pattern — never commit secrets to version control.
• Use your language's standard HMAC library rather than a third-party package — all languages featured in this guide have HMAC-SHA256 in their standard library.
• Consider a structured logging library to capture the address, event, and timestamp fields from every webhook delivery for observability.
• Test your handler locally using a tunneling tool like ngrok or a local webhook testing service before pointing your JsonHook address at a production URL.