Webhooks in config?

[SuddenDev]

So hi again. I need to use webhooks to re-deploy my repo on vercel and fetch the latest data. I tried to use the afterChange hook in the payload.config file, but unfortunately it did not work.

[22:09:40] INFO (payload): Starting Payload...
[22:09:42] ERROR (payload): There were 1 errors validating your Payload config
[22:09:42] ERROR (payload): 1: "hooks.afterChange" is not allowed
[nodemon] app crashed - waiting for file changes before starting...

The documentation is a bit fuzzy on that one, What can I use? My code looks like this:

payload.config.js
-------------------

...
const afterChange = async ({ operation }) => {
  console.log(operation);
};
...

...
  hooks: {
    afterChange: [afterChange]
  },
...

Any ideas or recomendations on how to do that?
I do think it makes the most sense to have a global hook or something to detect changes.

Have a nice weekend!
Cheers

[jmikrut]

That hook is specific to fields, collections, and globals. My suspicion is that you might be applying it to the top level config. Try it on a collection basis?

[SuddenDev]

Oh I see. I just thought instead of adding the same function to all my collections / globals I could just add it once to the global config. What hooks are actually available in the config then? The docs are a bit too vague on that imo.

[jmikrut]

Totally see what you're saying. That could be possible as a future enhancement. Top-level config hooks are not documented right now because there is only 1 at the moment (afterError) which needs a bit more testing before we put it in the docs.

In cases like yours, we suggest writing your hook in a separate file which can then be imported / used in all relevant collections. In our projects, this is typically preferable because you might not need that hook to be run on all collections. For example, if you had a Users or Orders collection which do not need to trigger a frontend rebuild.

If you still would prefer a Payload-wide afterChange hook I am sure we could figure out how to implement it though!

[SuddenDev]

Thanks for your quick answers! Most CMS' that I know use like a global setting for hooks, but I do absolutly see your point with your User / Orders collections example.
For now I'll just continue with your suggestion, since I just need to do that for a couple of files.

I do think it would be good to improve the docs about the hooks still experimental (or a future feature idea) in the main config.payload.js. Right now it reads like you can just use whatever the other types (collections, globals, fields) accept.
Thanks!

[jmikrut]

Totally. We'll shore up those docs ASAP and we'll likely just go ahead and add some documentation around that one Payload-wide hook we do have now as well.

Thanks for pointing that out!