OpenEvidence Webhooks & Events Skill

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

| Event | Payload Fields | Use Case | |-------|---------------|----------| | query.completed | query_id, evidence_count, confidence | Deliver clinical answers to requester | | evidence.updated | topic_id, revision, sources_changed | Refresh cached evidence summaries | | citation.added | citation_id, pubmed_id, journal | Index new literature into knowledge base | | review.flagged | review_id, flag_reason, severity | Escalate flagged content for human review | | query.failed | query_id, error_code, retry_after | Alert ops and queue retry |

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

| Issue | Cause | Fix | |-------|-------|-----| | Signature mismatch | Secret rotation during deployment | Re-sync secret from OpenEvidence dashboard | | Empty evidence_count | Query matched no indexed sources | Check query scope and topic coverage | | Stale pubmed_id | Citation retracted after indexing | Subscribe to citation.retracted events | | Review escalation loop | Automated re-flag on same content | Deduplicate by review_id with cooldown |

Resources

OpenEvidence Platform

Next Steps

See openevidence-security-basics.

Agent Skills: OpenEvidence Webhooks & Events

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