How to Use BlueSky Webhooks for Automation Alerts

If you are searching for BlueSky webhooks, the first thing to know is that BlueSky is not built like a simple SaaS dashboard where you toggle an outbound webhook and wait for events.

Developers usually build webhook-style alerts by consuming AT Protocol streams, filtering the events they care about, and forwarding those filtered events to Slack, Discord, a database, an incident system, or their own webhook endpoint.

BlueSky's Firehose documentation describes the stream of posts, likes, follows, handle changes, and other repository activity.

BlueSky webhooks vs AT Protocol event streams

A normal webhook is a push notification from one service to your URL. The AT Protocol model is stream-first. Your service connects to a stream, reads events as they arrive, and decides what should become an alert.

That distinction matters for architecture. Instead of waiting for BlueSky to call your endpoint, your app runs a small listener that subscribes to the stream and forwards only the events that match your rules.

What the Firehose is

The Firehose is a core AT Protocol primitive. It streams repository events such as posts, likes, follows, and handle updates. Relays aggregate streams from PDS instances so downstream consumers can read a broader unified stream.

When the problem is lower-level debugging, start by decoding event structures and tracking sequence numbers across the live firehose stream before forwarding anything into a webhook-style alert target.

AT Protocol's streaming data guide explains the Firehose and why Jetstream exists as a simpler option for many developers.

When Jetstream is easier

If your goal is a practical alert pipeline, Jetstream is often easier to start with because it exposes simplified JSON, supports collection or repo filtering, and avoids some of the heavier Firehose decoding work.

Use Firehose when you need lower-level sync behavior or broad protocol data.

Use Jetstream when you want filtered JSON events for posts, repos, or specific collections.

Use your own webhook endpoint after the stream filter, not as a replacement for the stream.

A basic BlueSky alert workflow

Open a WebSocket connection to a Firehose or Jetstream endpoint.

Filter for the collection, repo, DID, handle, keyword, or event type you care about.

Normalize the event into a small alert object with text, URL, timestamp, and reason.

Send that alert to Slack, Discord, email, a dashboard, or your own webhook receiver.

Store enough state to avoid duplicate alerts and to retry failed deliveries safely.

What to alert on

Useful alerts are narrow. A developer team may alert on mentions of a product handle, posts from a company account, replies to a launch thread, feed-generator issues, or account identity changes. Broad keyword alerts can become noisy very quickly.

For product logs, you may also want the reverse workflow: your internal system notices an event, drafts a BlueSky update, and routes it for human review before it is scheduled or published.

Do not turn every event into an autopost

A stream can be real-time, but your brand voice should still be intentional. Fully automated product logs may be useful for status feeds or developer channels, but public community updates often need context, judgment, and timing.

This is where ONYX fits. Treat the stream as an alert layer and ONYX as the reviewed publishing layer. The alert tells you something happened. The ONYX content calendar helps you turn that event into a clear, human-approved post.

For recurring updates, start with the BlueSky content calendar template so developer alerts become planned communication instead of raw logs dumped into the feed.

A safer ONYX workflow for automation alerts

Let the alert pipeline collect technical events.

Convert important events into draft post ideas, not automatic public posts.

Use AI Voice in ONYX to draft human-sounding options from approved facts.

Review sensitive posts before scheduling.

Keep incident, security, legal, financial, and customer-specific updates under live human control.

The best setup is not maximum automation. It is the right boundary: machines detect events quickly, people decide what deserves public communication, and ONYX keeps the approved BlueSky queue organized.

Plan reviewed BlueSky updates with ONYX after your technical alert pipeline finds the signal.