Agent Ops / Standard term
Webhook
A webhook is a connection that lets an outside system notify your agent the instant something happens, such as a pull request opening or a deploy finishing, so the agent starts immediately instead of checking on a timer.
A webhook is a connection that lets an outside system notify your agent the instant something happens, such as a pull request opening or a deploy finishing, so the agent starts immediately instead of checking on a timer. You register one address with the outside service and tell it which events you care about; when one of those events occurs, the service sends a small message to that address and your agent run begins. Say you want an assistant to post a welcome note whenever someone fills out a form. With a webhook, the form provider calls your agent the moment a new entry arrives, so the note goes out in seconds. The alternative, polling, has the agent ask every few minutes whether anything new showed up, which wastes runs and adds delay.
Builder example
A webhook changes when your agent runs, so it suits work that has to respond quickly to an event rather than wait for the next scheduled pass. An order-confirmation assistant that polls once an hour can leave a buyer waiting; the same assistant triggered by a webhook replies within seconds of the order. The tradeoff is that the address is open to the internet, so anyone who finds it can try to fire your agent. Tell the agent to verify the message is genuinely from the expected service and to ignore anything that fails that check before it acts.
Common confusion: A webhook starts your agent when an event happens elsewhere, while a cron schedule starts it at a fixed clock time no matter what changed. Reach for a webhook when the work must follow an event closely, and a cron schedule when a steady, predictable rhythm matters more than instant response.