Update the moment you publish

Without a webhook, your site shows a new article the next time it reads the feed. With one, it can show it within seconds. The pattern is the same everywhere: verify, then refresh.

Make an endpoint that verifies the signature. webhookHandler does it for you.
Refresh in the way your site needs: start a build, clear a cache, or revalidate a path.
Add the endpoint in the app and keep its secret in CITEDSEO_WEBHOOK_SECRET.

Pick your refresh

webhookHandler is in @citedseo/feed and every framework package. It checks the signature, so onPost only ever runs for a post from us, and it answers 500 when onPost throws, so a refresh that failed is tried again.

Start a build through your host’s deploy hook. Keep the hook’s address in an environment variable; it is a secret too.

import { webhookHandler } from '@citedseo/feed';

export const POST = webhookHandler({
  secret: process.env.CITEDSEO_WEBHOOK_SECRET!,
  onPost: async () => {
    const res = await fetch(process.env.DEPLOY_HOOK_URL!, { method: 'POST' });
    // Throwing answers 500, so CitedSEO tries the post again.
    if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`The deploy hook answered ${res.status}`);
  },
});

Revalidate the blog. Next.js builds the pages again on the next visit.

import { revalidatePath } from 'next/cache';
import { webhookHandler } from '@citedseo/next';

export const POST = webhookHandler({
  secret: process.env.CITEDSEO_WEBHOOK_SECRET!,
  onPost: () => revalidatePath('/blog', 'layout'),
});

Clear what you hold, or better, put the article from the post straight into it. The post carries the whole article, so there is nothing more to fetch.

import { webhookHandler } from '@citedseo/feed';
import { articles } from './store';

export const POST = webhookHandler({
  secret: process.env.CITEDSEO_WEBHOOK_SECRET!,
  onPost: async ({ data }) => {
    // Posts can arrive out of order, so keep whichever version changed last.
    const held = await articles.get(data.id);
    if (held && held.modifiedAt > data.modifiedAt) return;
    await articles.put(data.id, data);
  },
});

Keep the feed as the fallback

A webhook can be missed: your endpoint was down, or a deploy was mid-flight. Don’t let that leave your site stale for good.

Still refresh on a timer. Read the manifest again every few minutes to an hour, so a missed post heals itself. It is one small file.
Catch take-downs from the feed. Nothing is posted when an article is taken down, so a store built only from webhooks keeps it. Compare against the feed now and then and drop what is gone.