Engineering
Why FIFO Webhook Delivery Matters
2026-04-20·5 min
HS
By HookSniff Team
Engineering · Published on 2026-04-20
#engineering#fifo#architecture
Most webhook services deliver events in whatever order is convenient. But for many workflows, event ordering is critical.
The Problem
Imagine an e-commerce platform: order.created, order.paid, order.shipped, order.delivered. If these arrive out of order, your system breaks.
How FIFO Works
HookSniff assigns sequence numbers per endpoint. Deliveries happen in order — webhook #2 waits until #1 succeeds.
When You Need FIFO
- Order lifecycle events
- State machines
- Financial transactions
- Chat messages
When You Do Not
- Independent events
- High-throughput scenarios
- Fan-out patterns
Our Implementation
FIFO is opt-in per endpoint. Enable when ordering matters, disable when throughput matters.