Webhook GitHub Action

Why deploy Webhook GitHub Action on Render?

This is a template that demonstrates how to trigger GitHub Actions workflows from Render webhooks. It enables automated post-deployment tasks like running end-to-end tests, clearing CDN caches, or triggering subsequent deployments when a Render service finishes deploying.

This template deploys a pre-configured webhook receiver service that bridges Render deploy events to GitHub Actions workflows, handling the signature verification, payload parsing, and GitHub API authentication out of the box. Instead of manually writing the webhook handler, configuring environment variables for both platforms, and wiring up the Render-to-GitHub authentication flow yourself, one-click deploy gets you a working integration in minutes. You just supply your API tokens and repo details—the template handles the plumbing so you can focus on what your GitHub Action actually does (running E2E tests, clearing CDN caches, or triggering downstream deploys).

Architecture

What you can build

After deploying, you'll have a webhook listener that triggers GitHub Actions workflows whenever a Render deploy finishes. This lets you automate post-deployment tasks like running end-to-end tests, clearing CDN caches, or kicking off data migrations without manual intervention. You'll still need to configure the webhook, API keys, and your GitHub workflow to complete the integration.

Key features

• Webhook-to-Action Bridge: Receives Render deploy webhooks and triggers GitHub Actions workflows via the workflow dispatch API.
• Webhook Signature Verification: Validates incoming webhooks using a signing secret to ensure requests originate from Render.
• DeployEnded Event Handling: Specifically listens for deploy completion events to trigger post-deployment automation like tests or cache clearing.
• One-Click Render Deploy: Includes deploy-to-Render button with preconfigured service setup for immediate deployment.
• Configurable Workflow Targeting: Environment variables allow specifying which GitHub repo, owner, and workflow file to trigger without code changes.

Use cases

• QA engineer triggers end-to-end tests automatically after each Render deployment
• Frontend developer clears CDN cache when static site deployment completes
• DevOps lead notifies Datadog monitoring system with new deployment metadata
• Backend engineer runs database migrations after API service deploys successfully

Prerequisites

• Render Webhook Secret: The signing secret from your Render webhook used to verify incoming webhook requests.
• Render API Key: Your Render API key used to authenticate requests to the Render API.
• GitHub API Token: A GitHub personal access token with read/write permissions for Actions to trigger workflows.
• GitHub Owner Name: The username or organization name that owns the GitHub repository containing your workflow.
• GitHub Repo Name: The name of the GitHub repository where your workflow is located.
• GitHub Workflow ID: The filename or ID of the GitHub Actions workflow you want to trigger.

Next steps

1. Configure a Render webhook for your target service with the /webhook path and DeployEnded event — You should see the webhook appear in your service's Settings tab with the signing secret available to copy
2. Test the integration by triggering a deploy on the monitored service — You should see a new workflow run appear in your GitHub repo's Actions tab within 30 seconds of the deploy completing
3. Open your Render service logs after the webhook fires — You should see a log entry confirming the webhook was received and the GitHub Action was triggered successfully

Resources

• Render official site