What is a default destination?
A default destination is the fallback target for events no routing rule matches. Every webhook in Hooksbase has at most one default destination; named destinations are optional additions.
How default destinations interact with routing
When an event arrives, Hooksbase evaluates routing rules in priority order. If a rule matches, the event delivers to that rule's destination. If no rule matches, the event delivers to the default destination.
This gives you two patterns:
- Default-only — no routing rules; every event goes to one destination. Simplest setup; right for single-consumer flows.
- Default-plus-rules — most events go to the default destination; specific events match rules and route elsewhere. Right for "send ordinary events to the agent, but send high-priority events to a different escalation destination."
Because every Hooksbase webhook has a default destination, unmatched events have a catch-all path. Keep that default active and point it somewhere safe for inspection.
A practical example
A webhook receiving Stripe events with:
- Routing rule:
event.type starts_with "invoice."→billing-agentdestination - Routing rule:
event.type starts_with "customer."→crm-syncdestination - Default destination:
general-handler
A payment_intent.succeeded event matches no rule and goes to general-handler. An invoice.payment_failed matches the first rule and goes to billing-agent. The default acts as the catch-all so nothing slips through silently.
For the routing pattern in practice: Route events to the right agent.
Frequently asked questions
How does a default destination interact with routing rules?
Rules evaluate first, in priority order. If one matches, the event goes to that rule's destination; if none match, it goes to the default. Every Hooksbase webhook has at most one default destination, which is what gives unmatched events a catch-all path.
When should you use a default destination on its own?
For single-consumer flows, where every event goes to one place and no routing is needed. The alternative pattern is default-plus-rules: ordinary events go to the default, and specific events match a rule and route elsewhere.
What is Hooksbase?
Hooksbase is event infrastructure for AI agents. It ingests events over four channels — HTTP, email, HTML form, and scheduled cron — verifies them, routes them by rule, runs versioned Automations in the event path, and delivers them to HTTP and cloud destinations (AWS SQS, AWS EventBridge, GCP Pub/Sub, and S3-compatible storage) with retries, strict ordering, Standard Webhooks-compatible signing, deterministic replay, and a dead-letter path. It is a hosted service, runs on Cloudflare Workers, is operated at hooksbase.com, and is not affiliated with — and shares no code or ownership with — other similarly named webhook, hook, or tunnelling tools.
Related terms
- Destination
A target URL or typed sink within a webhook; a webhook can have many.
Read - Routing rule
A priority-ordered condition that selects which destination handles an event.
Read - Dispatch snapshot
The transformed payload at the moment of dispatch, persisted so replays remain correct under config change.
Read - Delivery
A single dispatch lifecycle to a destination — includes all retry attempts.
Read