What is the primary purpose of a webhook?

• A. To notify your backend in real time when Stripe events occur.
• B. To log events to a file.
• C. To modify events in Stripe.
• D. To create new API keys.

Answer: (A)

Webhooks are Stripe’s way of pushing notifications to your backend in real time whenever something happens in Stripe. The main purpose is to let your application react immediately to events—like a payment succeeding, a subscription changing, or a refund being issued—so you can update your database, trigger internal workflows, or take other automated actions. They’re HTTP POST requests to an endpoint you configure, and you should verify the signature to confirm the message came from Stripe. Webhooks aren’t used for logging events, modifying events in Stripe, or creating API keys, though you may log received payloads or process them to drive your app’s logic.