Langfuse Webhooks & Events

Overview

Configure webhooks and event callbacks to receive real-time notifications from Langfuse.

Prerequisites

Langfuse account with webhook access
HTTPS endpoint to receive webhooks
Understanding of event-driven architecture

Instructions

Step 1: Create Webhook Endpoint

// api/webhooks/langfuse/route.ts (Next.js App Router)
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from "next/server";
import crypto from "crypto";

const WEBHOOK_SECRET = process.env.LANGFUSE_WEBHOOK_SECRET!;

interface LangfuseWebhookPayload {
  event: string;
  timestamp: string;
  data: {
    traceId?: string;
    observationId?: string;
    scoreId?: string;
    projectId: string;
    [key: string]: any;
  };
}

function verifySignature(payload: string, signature: string): boolean {
  const expectedSignature = crypto
    .createHmac("sha256", WEBHOOK_SECRET)
    .update(payload)
    .digest("hex");

  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
    Buffer.from(signature),
    Buffer.from(expectedSignature)
  );
}

export async function POST(request: NextRequest) {
  const payload = await request.text();
  const signature = request.headers.get("x-langfuse-signature");

  // Verify webhook signature
  if (!signature || !verifySignature(payload, signature)) {
    console.error("Invalid webhook signature");
    return NextResponse.json({ error: "Invalid signature" }, { status: 401 });
  }

  const event: LangfuseWebhookPayload = JSON.parse(payload);

  console.log(`Received Langfuse event: ${event.event}`);

  // Handle different event types
  switch (event.event) {
    case "trace.created":
      await handleTraceCreated(event.data);
      break;

    case "trace.updated":
      await handleTraceUpdated(event.data);
      break;

    case "score.created":
      await handleScoreCreated(event.data);
      break;

    case "generation.created":
      await handleGenerationCreated(event.data);
      break;

    default:
      console.log(`Unhandled event type: ${event.event}`);
  }

  return NextResponse.json({ received: true });
}

async function handleTraceCreated(data: any) {
  console.log(`New trace created: ${data.traceId}`);
  // Trigger downstream actions
}

async function handleTraceUpdated(data: any) {
  // Check for errors
  if (data.level === "ERROR") {
    await sendAlertNotification({
      title: "Langfuse Error Trace",
      traceId: data.traceId,
      message: data.statusMessage,
    });
  }
}

async function handleScoreCreated(data: any) {
  // Alert on low scores
  if (data.value < 0.5) {
    await sendAlertNotification({
      title: "Low Score Alert",
      traceId: data.traceId,
      score: data.name,
      value: data.value,
    });
  }
}

async function handleGenerationCreated(data: any) {
  // Track token usage
  if (data.usage) {
    await trackTokenUsage({
      model: data.model,
      promptTokens: data.usage.promptTokens,
      completionTokens: data.usage.completionTokens,
    });
  }
}

Step 2: Configure Webhook in Langfuse Dashboard

1. Go to Langfuse Dashboard -> Settings -> Webhooks
2. Click "Add Webhook"
3. Configure:
   - URL: https://your-domain.com/api/webhooks/langfuse
   - Events: Select events to subscribe to
   - Secret: Generate and save webhook secret
4. Test webhook with "Send Test Event"

Step 3: Implement Event Processing Queue

// lib/webhook-queue.ts
import { Queue, Worker } from "bullmq";
import Redis from "ioredis";

const connection = new Redis(process.env.REDIS_URL!);

// Queue for processing webhook events
export const langfuseQueue = new Queue("langfuse-events", { connection });

// Webhook handler adds to queue
export async function queueWebhookEvent(event: LangfuseWebhookPayload) {
  await langfuseQueue.add(event.event, event, {
    removeOnComplete: 1000,
    removeOnFail: 5000,
    attempts: 3,
    backoff: {
      type: "exponential",
      delay: 1000,
    },
  });
}

// Worker processes events
const worker = new Worker(
  "langfuse-events",
  async (job) => {
    const event = job.data as LangfuseWebhookPayload;

    switch (job.name) {
      case "trace.created":
        await processTraceCreated(event);
        break;

      case "score.created":
        await processScoreCreated(event);
        break;

      // ... other handlers
    }
  },
  { connection }
);

worker.on("failed", (job, error) => {
  console.error(`Job ${job?.id} failed:`, error);
});

Step 4: Real-Time Event Streaming (Alternative)

// For real-time updates without webhooks
// Use Langfuse API polling with caching

import { Langfuse } from "langfuse";

class LangfuseEventStream {
  private langfuse: Langfuse;
  private lastChecked: Date;
  private pollInterval: number;

  constructor(pollIntervalMs: number = 5000) {
    this.langfuse = new Langfuse();
    this.lastChecked = new Date();
    this.pollInterval = pollIntervalMs;
  }

  async start(handlers: {
    onTrace?: (trace: any) => void;
    onScore?: (score: any) => void;
  }) {
    setInterval(async () => {
      await this.pollForUpdates(handlers);
    }, this.pollInterval);
  }

  private async pollForUpdates(handlers: {
    onTrace?: (trace: any) => void;
    onScore?: (score: any) => void;
  }) {
    try {
      const traces = await this.langfuse.fetchTraces({
        fromTimestamp: this.lastChecked,
      });

      for (const trace of traces.data) {
        handlers.onTrace?.(trace);
      }

      this.lastChecked = new Date();
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("Failed to poll Langfuse:", error);
    }
  }
}

// Usage
const stream = new LangfuseEventStream(10000); // 10 second poll
stream.start({
  onTrace: (trace) => {
    if (trace.level === "ERROR") {
      sendSlackAlert(`Error in trace ${trace.id}`);
    }
  },
});

Step 5: Integration with External Services

// Slack notification on errors
async function sendSlackNotification(event: LangfuseWebhookPayload) {
  if (event.data.level !== "ERROR") return;

  await fetch(process.env.SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL!, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      blocks: [
        {
          type: "header",
          text: {
            type: "plain_text",
            text: "Langfuse Error Alert",
          },
        },
        {
          type: "section",
          fields: [
            {
              type: "mrkdwn",
              text: `*Trace ID:*\n${event.data.traceId}`,
            },
            {
              type: "mrkdwn",
              text: `*Error:*\n${event.data.statusMessage}`,
            },
          ],
        },
        {
          type: "actions",
          elements: [
            {
              type: "button",
              text: { type: "plain_text", text: "View Trace" },
              url: `https://cloud.langfuse.com/trace/${event.data.traceId}`,
            },
          ],
        },
      ],
    }),
  });
}

// PagerDuty for critical alerts
async function sendPagerDutyAlert(event: LangfuseWebhookPayload) {
  await fetch("https://events.pagerduty.com/v2/enqueue", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      routing_key: process.env.PAGERDUTY_ROUTING_KEY,
      event_action: "trigger",
      payload: {
        summary: `Langfuse: ${event.event}`,
        severity: "critical",
        source: "langfuse",
        custom_details: event.data,
      },
    }),
  });
}

Output

Secure webhook endpoint with signature verification
Event processing queue for reliability
Real-time polling alternative
External service integrations (Slack, PagerDuty)

Webhook Event Types

| Event | Description | Use Case | |-------|-------------|----------| | trace.created | New trace started | Real-time monitoring | | trace.updated | Trace modified | Error detection | | generation.created | LLM call logged | Token tracking | | score.created | Score added | Quality alerts | | score.updated | Score modified | Evaluation updates |

Error Handling

| Issue | Cause | Solution | |-------|-------|----------| | Invalid signature | Wrong secret | Verify webhook secret | | Missed events | Handler failure | Use queue with retries | | Duplicate events | No idempotency | Track processed event IDs | | Timeout | Slow handler | Queue events, respond fast |

Examples

Idempotent Event Processing

const processedEvents = new Set<string>();

async function handleWebhook(event: LangfuseWebhookPayload) {
  const eventId = `${event.event}-${event.timestamp}-${event.data.traceId}`;

  if (processedEvents.has(eventId)) {
    console.log(`Skipping duplicate event: ${eventId}`);
    return;
  }

  processedEvents.add(eventId);
  // Process event...

  // Clean up old events periodically
  if (processedEvents.size > 10000) {
    processedEvents.clear();
  }
}

Resources

Next Steps

For performance optimization, see langfuse-performance-tuning.