Today we’re excited to announce our new HTTP source type.
Our HTTP source is a universal connector that lets you trigger your multi-channel notifications from any source that can stream events into Knock. This includes dedicated streaming infrastructure, such as Kafka and Kinesis, as well as any product that can stream events and webhooks (think Supabase functions and Radar location-based events.)
tl;dr: Our generic HTTP source is available for all Knock customers to use today. You can get started in our docs.
Introducing a universal event source for Knock
Last fall we shipped Knock Sources. In Knock, a Source is a platform (often a CDP such as Segment or a reverse ETL like Hightouch) that streams events into Knock to trigger your notification workflows. You can map a source event into multiple notification workflows and map properties from that event into your notification logic and template personalization.
Before today’s update, our customers were only able to utilize CDPs and reverse ETL platforms as sources to trigger their Knock notifications. Many of them wanted the flexibility to integrate any data source into Knock to orchestrate their multi-channel notification workflows.
With our HTTP source, you can create your own sources to power your Knock notification system. If it can send a webhook, it can be used to power Knock.
Remember: you can still trigger Knock notification workflows directly via our API, many of our customers do! Using a Source is helpful when you want to integrate an event source into Knock once, then use that stream of events to set up notifications moving forward.
Why it’s important
As we’ve grown to power notifications for hundreds of customers, we’ve learned the importance our customers place on flexibility. Your product is evolving quickly, and your notifications need to, too.
This release brings more flexibility to Knock in the sources you can use to trigger notifications within it. If you want to use a location-based service to trigger notifications based on store proximity, you can. If your team is using Kafka as an event bus, and wants to hook it into Knock to power notifications, you can.
Knock Sources bring greater extensibility to the input side of the Knock notification engine, and we’re excited to see what our customers do with that extensibility.
Get started
Our HTTP source is available now for all Knock customers. We’re excited to see how you use it to connect with your customers and power delightful notification experiences.
You can learn more about building your own Knock source in our documentation.