The Silent Killer: Why Webhook Signature Mismatch Errors Happen
A webhook arrives at your endpoint, but the signature verification fails. Your handler rejects it. The provider's retry queue fires again. Logs fill with cryptic "signature verification failed" messages, and you're left wondering: Is the payload corrupted? Did I store the secret correctly? Is my clock skewed?
The webhook signature mismatch error is one of the most frustrating integration bugs because it straddles two worlds—the provider's signing logic and your validation code—with no visibility into either. You can't see the raw bytes the provider signed. You can't replay the exact request. And by the time you realize the issue, you've already lost events. This guide walks you through the root causes and gives you concrete debugging steps to resolve it.
Prerequisites
A webhook provider account (GitHub, Stripe, Shopify, or similar) with webhook configuration access
