How to Set Up GitLab Webhook Notifications with Webhookify

Published Feb 21 202610 min read
GitLab webhook setup with Webhookify

GitLab is a comprehensive DevSecOps platform that provides source code management, CI/CD pipelines, container registries, and deployment automation in a single application. Millions of developers and organizations rely on GitLab for their entire software development lifecycle. Every push, merge request, pipeline run, and deployment generates events that development teams need to monitor. While GitLab has built-in notification emails, they can be slow, overwhelming, and lack intelligent summarization. Webhookify transforms GitLab webhook events into instant, AI-summarized notifications delivered to Telegram, Discord, Slack, Email, or your mobile device, giving you real-time DevOps visibility without the noise.

This guide walks you through connecting GitLab webhooks to Webhookify step by step. Whether you are monitoring a single project or a group of repositories, you will be set up in under 15 minutes with zero code required.

Why Monitor GitLab Webhooks with Webhookify?

  • Pipeline Failure Alerts: Know immediately when a CI/CD pipeline fails. Webhookify delivers AI-summarized notifications that tell you which pipeline broke, on which branch, and the stage that failed -- so you can start investigating without navigating through the GitLab UI.

  • Merge Request Tracking: Monitor the complete lifecycle of merge requests from creation to merge. Get notified when MRs are opened, approved, merged, or when conflicts arise. This is essential for team leads who review code across multiple projects.

  • Deployment Monitoring: Track deployment events in real time across staging and production environments. When a deployment succeeds or fails, you receive an immediate notification with environment details, enabling faster incident response.

  • Multi-Project Oversight: If you maintain multiple GitLab projects or groups, Webhookify consolidates all webhook events into unified notification streams. Route different projects to different channels, or aggregate everything for complete visibility.

  • AI-Powered Summaries: Instead of receiving raw JSON payloads, Webhookify uses AI to generate human-readable summaries. A pipeline failure becomes "Pipeline #4521 failed at the test stage on branch feature/auth -- 3 unit tests failed in auth_spec.rb" rather than a wall of JSON.

Prerequisites

  1. A GitLab.com account or self-hosted GitLab instance with Maintainer or Owner access to the project
  2. A Webhookify account (sign up free at webhookify.app)
  3. At least one notification channel configured in Webhookify (Telegram, Discord, Slack, Email, or mobile push)
  4. For group-level webhooks, you need Owner permissions on the GitLab group (GitLab Premium or higher)

Step-by-Step Setup Guide

1

Create a Webhookify Endpoint

Log into your Webhookify dashboard at webhookify.app. Click "Create Endpoint" to generate a unique webhook URL:

https://hook.webhookify.app/wh/gl_xyz789abc123

Copy this URL. Name the endpoint descriptively, such as "GitLab - my-app project" or "GitLab CI/CD Monitoring." If you want separate notification rules for different projects, create a separate endpoint for each one. Otherwise, a single endpoint can receive webhooks from multiple GitLab projects.

2

Configure Your Notification Channel

Set up your preferred notification channels in the Webhookify settings before connecting GitLab.

For Telegram: Connect the Webhookify bot and select a chat or group. DevOps teams often create a dedicated "CI/CD Alerts" group for pipeline notifications.

For Discord: Authorize the bot and choose a channel like #gitlab-activity or #pipeline-alerts in your Discord server.

For Slack: Complete the OAuth flow and select a channel. Teams commonly use channels like #gitlab-ci, #merge-requests, or #deployments.

For Email: Add individual or team email addresses. This creates a searchable audit trail of all GitLab events.

For Mobile Push: Install the Webhookify app on your phone, sign in, and enable push notifications. This is critical for on-call engineers who need to know about pipeline failures or deployment issues immediately.

3

Add Your Webhookify URL in GitLab

Navigate to your GitLab project. In the left sidebar, go to Settings > Webhooks.

Click "Add new webhook" and fill in the following:

  • URL: Paste your Webhookify endpoint URL
  • Secret token: (Optional) Add a secret token for webhook payload verification. Webhookify logs the X-Gitlab-Token header for verification purposes.
  • Trigger: Select the events you want to monitor (see next step)
  • SSL verification: Keep this enabled (Webhookify uses HTTPS)

For group-level webhooks (GitLab Premium/Ultimate), navigate to your group's Settings > Webhooks. This allows you to receive events from all projects within the group using a single webhook configuration.

4

Select Events to Monitor

GitLab offers granular event triggers. Check the boxes for the events you want Webhookify to receive:

Most commonly monitored events:

  • Push events: Triggers on every code push. You can optionally filter by branch (e.g., only main or production).
  • Merge request events: Triggers when merge requests are created, updated, merged, or closed.
  • Pipeline events: Triggers when CI/CD pipelines start, succeed, or fail. This is one of the most valuable events for DevOps monitoring.
  • Deployment events: Triggers when deployments are created or updated across environments.
  • Tag push events: Triggers when tags are created or deleted, useful for release tracking.

Additional events:

  • Issues events: Issue creation, updates, and closures
  • Note events: Comments on issues, merge requests, commits, and snippets
  • Build events (Job events): Individual CI/CD job status changes
  • Release events: New releases published
  • Wiki page events: Wiki content changes

You can also enable branch filtering for push events to limit notifications to specific branches like main, staging, or production.

5

Test Your Configuration

After saving the webhook, GitLab provides a "Test" button next to each event type. Click the Test button next to "Push events" to send a sample payload to your Webhookify endpoint.

Check your Webhookify dashboard to confirm the test event was received. Then verify your notification channel:

  1. Look for the notification in your Telegram chat, Discord channel, Slack workspace, or mobile app
  2. The AI summary should describe the test push event

To test with a real event:

  1. Make a small commit to a file in your GitLab project
  2. Push the change to a branch
  3. Check your notification channel for the push alert

If the test event shows in the Webhookify dashboard with a 200 response, your webhook is properly connected.

GitLab Webhook Events You Can Monitor

GitLab EventDescription
pushTriggered when push occurs
tag_pushTriggered when tag push occurs
merge_requestTriggered when merge request occurs
pipelineTriggered when pipeline occurs
buildTriggered when build occurs
deploymentTriggered when deployment occurs
releaseTriggered when release occurs
issueTriggered when issue occurs
noteTriggered when note occurs
confidential_issueTriggered when confidential issue occurs
confidential_noteTriggered when confidential note occurs
wiki_pageTriggered when wiki page occurs
feature_flagTriggered when feature flag occurs
memberTriggered when member occurs
subgroupTriggered when subgroup occurs
emojiTriggered when emoji occurs

Real-World Use Cases

  • CI/CD Pipeline Monitoring: A DevOps team routes pipeline events to a dedicated Slack channel. When a pipeline fails on the main branch, the AI summary identifies the failing stage and job, allowing engineers to jump directly to debugging. Successful pipelines are logged silently in the Webhookify dashboard without triggering notifications, reducing noise.

  • Code Review Coordination: A team lead monitors merge_request events on Telegram. When a new MR is opened, they receive an instant notification with the title, description summary, and the number of changes. When an MR is approved or merged, they get an update. This keeps the review cycle tight without manually checking GitLab multiple times a day.

  • Release Tracking Across Projects: A release manager subscribes to tag_push and release events from multiple projects via group-level webhooks. When any team publishes a new release, they receive a consolidated notification with version numbers and changelogs, making it easy to coordinate release communications.

  • Production Deployment Alerts: An SRE team configures deployment events filtered to the production environment. When a deployment to production starts, succeeds, or fails, the entire team receives a mobile push notification. Failed deployments trigger an immediate incident response, cutting mean time to recovery from 45 minutes to under 10.

Example Notification

Here is what a typical Webhookify notification looks like for a GitLab pipeline failure event:

New Webhook Event Received

Source: GitLab
Event: pipeline
Endpoint: GitLab - my-app project

AI Summary:
Pipeline #4521 FAILED in the "my-org/my-app" project
on branch "feature/user-auth":
  Stage: test (failed)
  Job: rspec-unit - 3 tests failed
  Duration: 4m 32s
  Triggered by: Alex Rivera
  Commit: "Add OAuth2 provider integration"

Timestamp: 2026-02-21T14:18:44Z

View full payload in Webhookify Dashboard

Troubleshooting

  1. GitLab shows "Hook execution failed" error: This typically means GitLab could not reach the Webhookify URL. Verify the endpoint URL is correct and does not contain trailing spaces. For self-hosted GitLab instances, ensure outbound HTTPS connections to hook.webhookify.app are allowed through your firewall.

  2. Test button works but real events do not trigger: Check that the specific event type is checked in your webhook configuration. GitLab treats each event type independently. Also verify that branch filtering is not excluding the branches where you are pushing changes.

  3. Pipeline events are overwhelming: Active projects with many branches can generate dozens of pipeline events per hour. Use Webhookify's filtering capabilities to focus on specific branches, or create separate endpoints for production pipeline monitoring versus development activity.

  4. Notifications arrive for some events but not others: Ensure all desired event checkboxes are selected in the GitLab webhook settings. Some events like "Confidential issues" and "Confidential note" require separate checkboxes from regular issues and notes.

  5. Self-hosted GitLab cannot reach Webhookify: If your GitLab instance is behind a corporate firewall, you may need to allowlist hook.webhookify.app in your outbound firewall rules. Check with your network administrator. GitLab also has an "Allow requests to the local network from webhooks" setting under Admin > Settings > Network that may need to be configured.

For the most effective DevOps monitoring, create two separate Webhookify endpoints: one for CI/CD events (pipeline and deployment) routed to a high-priority channel with mobile push notifications, and another for development activity (push, merge_request, note) routed to a standard Slack or Discord channel. This separation ensures pipeline failures get immediate attention while routine development notifications stay informational and do not cause alert fatigue.

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How to Set Up GitLab Webhook Notifications with Webhookify - Webhookify | Webhookify