OpenEvidence Webhooks & Events

Overview

OpenEvidence delivers webhook notifications for clinical evidence retrieval workflows. Subscribe to events when queries complete, evidence bases are updated, new citations are added, or clinical reviews are flagged. Use these webhooks to keep clinical decision support systems current and trigger downstream audit workflows in real time.

Webhook Registration

const response = await fetch("https://api.openevidence.com/v1/webhooks", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.OPENEVIDENCE_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: "https://yourapp.com/webhooks/openevidence",
    events: ["query.completed", "evidence.updated", "citation.added", "review.flagged"],
    secret: process.env.OPENEVIDENCE_WEBHOOK_SECRET,
  }),
});

Signature Verification

import crypto from "crypto";
import { Request, Response, NextFunction } from "express";

function verifyOpenEvidenceSignature(req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction) {
  const signature = req.headers["x-openevidence-signature"] as string;
  const expected = crypto.createHmac("sha256", process.env.OPENEVIDENCE_WEBHOOK_SECRET!)
    .update(req.body).digest("hex");
  if (!crypto.timingSafeEqual(Buffer.from(signature), Buffer.from(expected))) {
    return res.status(401).json({ error: "Invalid signature" });
  }
  next();
}

Event Handler

import express from "express";
const app = express();

app.post("/webhooks/openevidence", express.raw({ type: "application/json" }), verifyOpenEvidenceSignature, (req, res) => {
  const event = JSON.parse(req.body.toString());
  res.status(200).json({ received: true });

  switch (event.type) {
    case "query.completed":
      deliverResults(event.data.query_id, event.data.evidence_count); break;
    case "evidence.updated":
      refreshClinicalCache(event.data.topic_id, event.data.revision); break;
    case "citation.added":
      indexCitation(event.data.citation_id, event.data.pubmed_id); break;
    case "review.flagged":
      escalateReview(event.data.review_id, event.data.flag_reason); break;
  }
});

Event Types

query.completed

query_id

evidence_count

confidence

evidence.updated

topic_id

revision

sources_changed

citation.added

citation_id

pubmed_id

journal

review.flagged

review_id

flag_reason

severity

query.failed

query_id

error_code

retry_after

Retry & Idempotency

const processed = new Set<string>();

async function handleIdempotent(event: { id: string; type: string; data: any }) {
  if (processed.has(event.id)) return;
  await routeEvent(event);
  processed.add(event.id);
  if (processed.size > 10_000) {
    const entries = Array.from(processed);
    entries.slice(0, entries.length - 10_000).forEach((id) => processed.delete(id));
  }
}

Error Handling

evidence_count

pubmed_id

citation.retracted

review_id

Resources

• OpenEvidence Platform

Next Steps

See

openevidence-security-basics