Convoy Vocabulary

name: Convoy Vocabulary
description: >-
  Domain vocabulary for the Convoy webhooks gateway, mapping operational
  (sending, receiving, retrying, signing, observing) and capability
  (subscriptions, endpoints, sources, portal links, event types) dimensions
  used across the Convoy API, SDKs, and OSS distribution. Derived from the
  Convoy OpenAPI 3.0.0 spec (version 26.3.5) and the public Convoy
  documentation.
url: https://github.com/api-evangelist/convoy
created: '2026-05-22'
modified: '2026-05-22'

operational:
  description: Verbs and actions the Convoy platform performs.
  terms:
    - name: Ingest
      definition: Accept an event from an HTTP source, REST call, or message broker (Kafka, AMQP, Pub/Sub, SQS) and persist it for delivery.
    - name: Sign
      definition: Compute an HMAC over the payload (simple or advanced timestamp+versioned format, hex or base64) and attach it to the outbound request.
    - name: Verify
      definition: Validate an inbound webhook's signature using HMAC, Basic Auth, API Key, or custom JS verification.
    - name: Fan Out
      definition: Route a single event to multiple matching subscriptions/endpoints based on event type or payload filter.
    - name: Deliver
      definition: Attempt the HTTP request against an endpoint, recording status, headers, and response body as a Delivery Attempt.
    - name: Retry
      definition: Re-attempt delivery using linear (constant-time) or exponential backoff with jitter, up to a configured retry limit (default 20).
    - name: Batch Retry
      definition: Replay or retry many event deliveries together via the batchretry / forceresend / batchreplay endpoints.
    - name: Filter
      definition: Match events against subscription criteria over headers and body before delivery.
    - name: Transform
      definition: Mutate the payload or headers with a user-supplied JavaScript function before signing and delivery.
    - name: Throttle
      definition: Enforce a per-endpoint rate limit (events per duration window).
    - name: Pause
      definition: Disable delivery for an endpoint while keeping its configuration intact.
    - name: Roll Secret
      definition: Expire an endpoint's current signing secret and generate a new one, supporting overlap windows for zero-downtime rotation.
    - name: Onboard
      definition: Bootstrap a project's first source, endpoint, and subscription in a single API call.

capability:
  description: Nouns — the resources Convoy manages.
  terms:
    - name: Project
      definition: A tenant-scoped container holding endpoints, sources, subscriptions, event types, and portal links.
    - name: Endpoint
      definition: A destination URL that receives webhook deliveries, plus its signing secret, retry/rate-limit config, and authentication.
    - name: Source
      definition: An ingest channel (HTTP, REST API push, or a message broker — Kafka, AMQP, Google Pub/Sub, AWS SQS) that emits events into Convoy.
    - name: SourceProvider
      definition: A known third-party emitter shape (GitHub, Shopify, Twitter/X, Mono, generic) whose verification scheme Convoy understands.
    - name: Subscription
      definition: A binding from a source and/or filter to one or more endpoints, with retry, alert, and rate-limit configuration.
    - name: Event
      definition: A single message ingested by Convoy, carrying an event type, payload, headers, and idempotency key.
    - name: EventType
      definition: A declared event name in a project, optionally with a JSON Schema for payload validation, plus a deprecated flag.
    - name: EventDelivery
      definition: A single attempted delivery of an event to one endpoint, with delivery status and metadata.
    - name: DeliveryAttempt
      definition: A single HTTP attempt within an EventDelivery, capturing request/response headers, status, body, and timing.
    - name: PortalLink
      definition: A scoped, embeddable customer-facing dashboard link granting access to a subset of endpoints and event deliveries.
    - name: Filter
      definition: A reusable header/body matcher attached to a subscription, controlling which events fan out.
    - name: MetaEvent
      definition: A platform-emitted event describing lifecycle changes (e.g. endpoint.created, endpoint.failed).
    - name: ApiKey
      definition: A bearer token presented in the Authorization header that scopes access to Convoy resources.

security:
  description: Security and authentication concepts.
  terms:
    - name: HMAC
      definition: Hash-based message authentication code used for signing outbound webhooks and verifying inbound ones.
    - name: Advanced Signature
      definition: A timestamp+versioned signature (t=...,v1=...) supporting replay protection and key rotation.
    - name: Simple Signature
      definition: A single-hash signature without timestamp, suitable for simpler consumers.
    - name: Bearer Token
      definition: "The Convoy API key, passed as `Authorization: Bearer {key}`."
    - name: OAuth2 Client Credentials
      definition: Outbound authentication mode where Convoy obtains a token from the destination service via shared secret or JWT client assertion.
    - name: mTLS
      definition: Mutual-TLS client certificate authentication for outbound delivery to endpoints that require it.
    - name: Static IP
      definition: A fixed source IP range Convoy delivers from, allowing destination services to allow-list traffic (Cloud paid add-on).
    - name: Endpoint Secret
      definition: The HMAC key bound to an endpoint, with expiration and rotation lifecycle.
    - name: RBAC
      definition: Role-based access control across organization members (five tiers as of 2025-10).

retry:
  description: Retry strategy vocabulary.
  terms:
    - name: Linear Retry
      definition: Constant-time retries (default 1-hour spacing) up to the configured retry limit.
    - name: Exponential Backoff
      definition: Retry delay grows as min(delaySeconds * 2^attempt, maxRetrySeconds) with ±10% jitter; default cap 7200 seconds.
    - name: Retry Limit
      definition: Maximum number of delivery attempts before the delivery is marked failed (default 20).
    - name: Circuit Breaking
      definition: Per-endpoint failure detection that pauses delivery when error rates exceed threshold.

observability:
  description: Operational visibility concepts.
  terms:
    - name: Event Log
      definition: The append-only record of every ingested event, queryable by date, source, event type, and idempotency key.
    - name: Delivery Log
      definition: The per-attempt log of HTTP calls Convoy made against endpoints, with status, latency, headers, and body.
    - name: Failure Alert
      definition: An email or Slack notification fired after consecutive endpoint failures cross an alert threshold.
    - name: Meta Event
      definition: A platform-level event describing internal lifecycle changes, deliverable to a meta-event endpoint.

deployment:
  description: Distribution and runtime modes.
  terms:
    - name: Self-Hosted
      definition: Run the OSS Convoy distribution under Elastic License v2.0 on your own infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes/Helm).
    - name: Cloud
      definition: Convoy's managed SaaS, served from us.getconvoy.cloud and eu.getconvoy.cloud, with Pro and Enterprise tiers.
    - name: Region
      definition: An isolated Cloud deployment (US or EU) with its own data plane.
    - name: Control Plane
      definition: The Cloud component responsible for dashboard, API, and configuration management.
    - name: Data Plane
      definition: The Cloud component responsible for ingest, queue, retries, and delivery.

tags:
  - Webhooks
  - Webhook Gateway
  - Event Delivery
  - Eventing
  - Messaging
  - Integration
  - API Infrastructure
  - Observability
  - HMAC
  - Retries
  - Convoy