Ascend Webhooks

Ascend (insurance payments / premium financing) sends webhooks so your app is notified when an event happens — for example when an invoice is paid. Ascend POSTs a JSON payload over HTTPS and signs it with an HMAC-SHA256 signature you must verify before trusting the event.

When to Use This Skill

• How do I receive Ascend webhooks?
• How do I verify Ascend webhook signatures?
• How do I parse the X-Ascend-Signature header?
• How do I handle invoice.paid (or payout / refund) events?
• Why is my Ascend webhook signature verification failing?

How Ascend Signs Webhooks

Ascend uses a custom Stripe-style HMAC-SHA256 scheme (not Svix, not Standard Webhooks). Two headers are sent:

The signature is verified by:

1. Parse X-Ascend-Signature into t (timestamp) and v1 (hex HMAC).
2. Build the signed string as `${t}:${rawBody}` — the timestamp, a colon, then the raw request body.
3. Compute HMAC-SHA256(signed_string, webhook_secret) and hex-encode it.
4. Constant-time compare against v1.

Use the raw request body. Re-serializing the parsed JSON (key reordering, whitespace) changes the bytes and breaks the signature. There is no official Ascend SDK, so every framework below verifies manually.

Verification (core)

const crypto = require('crypto');

// Verify Ascend's "t=<timestamp>,v1=<hex>" signature over "<timestamp>:<rawBody>".
function verifyAscendSignature(rawBody, signatureHeader, secret) {
  const parts = Object.fromEntries(
    signatureHeader.split(',').map((p) => p.split('=').map((s) => s.trim()))
  );
  const { t: timestamp, v1: signature } = parts;
  if (!timestamp || !signature) return false;

  const expected = crypto
    .createHmac('sha256', secret)
    .update(`${timestamp}:${rawBody}`) // colon separator + RAW body
    .digest('hex');

  try {
    return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
      Buffer.from(signature, 'hex'),
      Buffer.from(expected, 'hex')
    );
  } catch {
    return false; // length mismatch = invalid
  }
}

For complete handlers with tests, see examples/express/, examples/nextjs/, examples/fastapi/.

Event Payload Structure

Every event has the same top-level shape. Unlike Stripe, data is the resource object directly (there is no data.object wrapper):

{
  "id": "ajskljfaklsjd0912132",
  "type": "invoice.paid",
  "data": {
    "id": "684c8c8e-75eb-4134-925a-cb3a30f23633",
    "status": "paid",
    "payee": "John Doe Trucking",
    "payer_name": "John Doe",
    "total_amount_cents": 600000,
    "invoice_number": "II2DH1HGHJ",
    "paid_at": "2023-10-01T23:51:37.507Z"
  }
}

Common Event Types

Always branch on the type field and handle unknown types gracefully. See references/overview.md for the full list and payloads.

Environment Variables

Setup

Ascend webhook registration is manual — there is no self-serve dashboard. Email developers@useascend.com with your organization, environment (sandbox/production), the events you want, and your HTTPS endpoint URL. Ascend returns a webhook signing secret. See references/setup.md.

Local Development

For local webhook testing, run the Hookdeck CLI via npx — no install required:

npx hookdeck-cli listen 3000 ascend --path /webhooks/ascend

No account required — the CLI creates a guest account on first run and provides a local tunnel + web UI for inspecting requests.

Reference Materials

• overview.md — What Ascend webhooks are, event types, payload structure
• setup.md — Registering your endpoint and getting the signing secret
• verification.md — Signature verification details and gotchas
• examples/express/ — Express (Node.js) example with tests
• examples/nextjs/ — Next.js App Router example with tests
• examples/fastapi/ — FastAPI (Python) example with tests

Recommended: webhook-handler-patterns

Install webhook-handler-patterns alongside this skill for cross-cutting concerns:

• Handler sequence
• Idempotency
• Error handling
• Retry logic

Related Skills

• stripe-webhooks - Stripe's HMAC-SHA256 t=,v1= scheme (Ascend mirrors this style)
• github-webhooks - HMAC-SHA256 signature verification
• shopify-webhooks - HMAC-SHA256 with Base64 encoding
• webhook-handler-patterns - Idempotency, error handling, retry logic
• hookdeck-event-gateway - Production webhook infrastructure