Respond to Webhook

The Respond to Webhook action sends a custom HTTP response — status code, body, and headers — back to the caller of a workflow’s Sync Webhook endpoint. Use it to build API-style endpoints on top of a workflow.

It’s the Respond to Webhook action of the Webhook piece (Core category) in the Add Step panel.

How It Works

The action immediately sends a response to the webhook caller.
Any steps after this action continue executing in the background, unless Stop Workflow After Response is on.
Only the first Respond to Webhook action that runs in an execution sends the response.
It only matters for workflows called at the Sync Webhook endpoint — by the time an Async Webhook call (or any other trigger) reaches this step, the caller has already received its response, so the step still runs but has no visible effect on them.

Response Types

Type	Content-Type	Use Case
JSON	`application/json`	API responses, structured data
Plain Text	`text/plain`	Simple messages
HTML	`text/html`	Web pages, formatted content
XML	`application/xml`	Legacy systems, SOAP
Redirect	—	URL redirections (301/302)
Custom	`application/octet-stream`	Binary data, files

Settings

Setting	Required	Default	Description
Response Type	Yes	JSON	JSON, Plain Text, HTML, XML, Redirect, or Custom

JSON, Plain Text, HTML, XML, and Custom

Setting	Required	Default	Description
HTTP Status Code	Yes	`200 OK`	One of a fixed list of common 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, and 5xx codes (200, 201, 202, 204, 301–308, 400, 401, 403, 404, 405, 409, 422, 429, 500, 502, 503)
Response Body	No	—	The content to return. For JSON, a valid JSON string is normalized automatically
Custom Headers	No	`{}`	Extra HTTP headers to add to the response, as key/value pairs
Stop Workflow After Response	No	Off	If on, the workflow stops after sending the response. If off, the steps after this one keep running in the background

Redirect

Setting	Required	Default	Description
Redirect URL	Yes	—	The URL to redirect the caller to
Redirect Type	No	`302 - Temporary Redirect`	`302 - Temporary Redirect` or `301 - Permanent Redirect`
Custom Headers	No	`{}`	Extra HTTP headers to add to the response

A Redirect response always stops the rest of the workflow — there is no Stop Workflow After Response option for it.

How the Response Body Is Built

JSON — an object/array Response Body is encoded as JSON. A string Response Body is parsed and re-encoded if it’s valid JSON; otherwise it’s wrapped as {"data": "<your text>"}. An empty body becomes {"success": true}.
XML — an object/array Response Body is converted to XML. A string Response Body is used as-is if it’s already valid XML, otherwise wrapped as <response><data>...</data></response>. An empty body becomes <response><success>true</success></response>.
HTML — used as-is; an empty body becomes a minimal “Success” page.
Plain Text — used as-is; an empty body becomes OK.
Custom — sent exactly as entered, with the application/octet-stream content type.

The Content-Type header is set automatically from Response Type; anything you add under Custom Headers is added on top (and can override it).

Output

Field	Type	Description
`success`	boolean	`true`
`response_sent`	boolean	`true`
`status_code`	number	The status code that was sent
`content_type`	string	The `Content-Type` header that was sent
`body_length`	number	Length of the response body in characters
`headers`	object	All headers that were sent

A Redirect response instead returns redirect: true, redirect_url, and status_code.

Errors and Limitations

Redirect fails with “Redirect URL is required for redirect response type” if Redirect URL is empty.
An invalid Redirect Type silently falls back to 302.
Continue on failure and Retry on failure are not available for this step.

Example: Simple Validation API

Webhook Trigger — called at the workflow’s Sync Webhook endpoint
Router
- Input invalid → Respond to Webhook: JSON, status 422, body { "error": "Invalid request" }
- Input valid → continue processing, then Respond to Webhook: JSON, status 200, body with the result

Best Practices

Call the workflow at its Sync Webhook endpoint (see Webhook Trigger) — this step has no visible effect on Async Webhook callers.
Turn on Stop Workflow After Response for pure request/response endpoints; leave it off when you want logging or follow-up steps to keep running after the caller gets a response.
Put only one Respond to Webhook action on each path through the workflow so the intended response is always the one sent.
Use Redirect for sign-in or consent-style flows that need to send the caller’s browser somewhere else.