Everything you need to run webhooks in production.

curl -X POST https://api.axelapp.ai/v1/sources \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AXEL_API_KEY" \
  -d '{ "name": "my-webhook", "max_events_per_minute": 600 }'

POST https://ingest.axelapp.ai/in/{source_id}
  x-axel-token: <token>
  content-type: application/json

  { "type": "order.created", "id": "ord_123", ... }

# Open https://app.axelapp.ai
# → Overview shows the event count tick up
# → Usage tab shows the source-level breakdown
# → Deliveries shows any failed attempts

Prefer the CLI? axel auth login, axel sources create, then axel listen or point your webhook producer at the ingest URL shown in the dashboard.

• Per-source rate limits (e.g. 2,500 events/min) protect downstream systems.
• Body cap (256 KB default) and depth cap (24 levels) reject pathological payloads early.
• Every accepted event is written to R2 before the 202 response is sent.
• Token values are stored only as SHA-256 hashes; never in logs.

Routes: declarative filters & transforms

Routes decide where events go and what they look like. Rules are data, not code.

• Filter by event type (e.g. payments.live matches invoice.paid etc.).
• Declarative transforms: select/rename fields by JSON path, drop fields, pass the whole payload through, or wrap it as a JSONB column.
• Same route engine runs at the edge ingest worker and in the Node router — no eval, no sandboxed user code to escape.
• Fan-out to many destinations from one source with per-(route, destination) idempotency keys.

Destinations

Deliver exactly once (with retries) to the systems you already run.

• Signed webhook: POST with HMAC + deterministic idempotency header so receivers can dedupe safely.
• Postgres / MongoDB: insert into JSONB or native collections. Column projection supported.
• S3 / Cloudflare R2: write JSON objects with templated keys (date, event type, id, etc.).
• Databricks: drop files into Unity Catalog volumes for Auto Loader / Delta Live Tables.

Idempotency

Every delivery attempt uses a stable key of the form workspace:event:route:destination. Retries and replays reuse the same key so duplicate work is impossible even across queue shards.

From the dashboard or CLI:

# Dashboard: click any event → Replay
# CLI (exact bytes to your laptop)
axel replay evt_01HZQ8R7XK --forward-to http://localhost:3000/webhook

• Replays pull the original payload + headers from R2 (30-day retention).
• Signature headers that would be stale are stripped for localhost forwards.
• Replay creates a fresh trace so you can compare original vs. re-delivery.

Failed deliveries & the Inbox

Every delivery attempt is recorded. Permanent failures (after all retries) land in the Inbox with one-click Retry and Mute. No SQL, no digging through DLQ tables.

The trace view shows every hop: receipt, R2 persist, route match, each transform, each HTTP attempt + status + reason (TLS error, 503, timeout, schema guard, etc.).

Transform & route errors

If a declarative transform or filter rejects an event (e.g. depth > 24, required field missing after select), the event is marked and either dropped or dead-lettered according to your source settings. You see the exact evaluation in the trace.

Scaling knobs

• Per-source rate limits + body/depth caps are your first line of defense.
• Router and delivery workers use bounded concurrency and sharded queues (Cloudflare Queues + internal).
• Raw payloads: 30 days in R2. ClickHouse traces: 30 days TTL. Dead letters kept longer (1 year).
• Dashboard and API give you live p95 ingest latency and per-route delivery metrics.

Every stored event carries the original payload plus Axel metadata. Example shape:

{
  "event_id": "evt_01HZQ8R7XK",
  "source": "my-webhook",
  "event": "order.created",
  "received_at": "2026-06-16T14:22:09.123Z",
  "headers": { "x-my-signature": "..." },
  "payload": { "id": "evt_...", "type": "order.created", ... },
  "routes": ["orders.live"]
}

Retry policy (defaults)

Up to 12 delivery attempts with exponential backoff. Retries are never billable. You can tune per-source in the dashboard.

ClickHouse observability

All receipt, routing, transform, and delivery rows are queryable in ClickHouse for 30 days (full raw payload + headers + failure reasons). The dashboard search and the axel CLI use these tables. Export or run your own queries from the usage / deliveries views.

Important status & error reasons

• 202: accepted (written to R2, queued for routing)
• 429: rate limited at source
• 413 / depth errors: body or nesting exceeded caps
• Signature / auth failures: rejected before durable store
• Destination 4xx/5xx, timeouts, TLS errors: retried per policy, then DLQ