tai42-webhook-verifier-github

The GitHub webhook-signature verifier plugin for the TAI ecosystem — a per-provider WebhookVerifier that authenticates each inbound GitHub delivery before the platform parses or dispatches its payload.

A webhook door can bind a named verifier to a topic; this plugin supplies the github verifier.

GitHub signs every webhook delivery with an HMAC-SHA256 over the exact raw request body, keyed by the shared secret, and sends it in the X-Hub-Signature-256 header as "sha256=" + hexdigest. GitHubWebhookVerifier recomputes that HMAC over the raw bytes and compares it in constant time. It returns None on success and raises WebhookVerificationError on any failure.

Its only tai-* dependency is tai42-contract (the interface it registers through); the HMAC work is pure standard library (hmac / hashlib). It never imports the skeleton — the plugin is contract-facing.

The TAI ecosystem

TAI is an open-source runtime for MCP tools, agents, and workflows. A trigger fires a tool from an inbound event; a webhook verifier is the door's bouncer — the per-provider check that authenticates a delivery before any hook runs. This package is the GitHub verifier. The ecosystem is open-ended: any package can supply a verifier, so this repo is this verifier's own full doc home, and the documentation site covers the platform-level story:

• Triggers & webhooks concept: https://tai42.ai/concepts/triggers-and-webhooks
• Build a webhook verifier (author guide): https://tai42.ai/guides/authors/webhook-verifier
• Ecosystem catalog: https://tai42.ai/reference/catalog

The current release line tracks the 7.x contract (tai42-contract>=7,<8).

Install

Requires Python 3.13+. Install from PyPI into the environment that runs the server:

uv add tai42-webhook-verifier-github

Or from source — clone this repo and add it as an editable dependency; the tai42-* dependencies resolve in-tree from the workspace.

git clone https://github.com/tai42ai/tai42   # next to your app checkout
cd /path/to/your/app
uv add --editable ../tai42/plugins/webhook-verifier-github

How it loads — lifecycle_modules

The platform loads this plugin through the manifest's lifecycle_modules field. That field is import-only: the host simply imports each listed module to run its registration side effect. Importing tai42_webhook_verifier_github calls tai42_app.webhook_verifiers.register("github", GitHubWebhookVerifier()), binding the github verifier on the app handle.

{
  // Import-only modules: loaded purely for their registration side effect.
  // `lifecycle_modules` are imported WITHOUT going through the extension
  // registry's validation — only `extensions_modules` run that. So this entry
  // is a plain registration, not an extension.
  "lifecycle_modules": ["tai42_webhook_verifier_github"]
}

lifecycle_modules entries are imported as-is, with no validation step — only extensions_modules go through the extension registry's validation. This entry is therefore a plain registration, not an extension.

Configuration — the secret never leaves the environment

A verifier is bound to a topic with {verifier, config}. This plugin's config holds only the name of the environment variable that carries the secret — never the secret itself:

{ "verifier": "github", "config": { "secret_env": "GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET" } }

At verify time the secret is read from os.environ[config["secret_env"]]. A missing env var raises loudly (KeyError) and an empty one raises ValueError — verification fails CLOSED, so a misconfigured secret never becomes a silently-unauthenticated door.

Replay defense: after a valid signature, each delivery is deduped by its X-GitHub-Delivery id in a seen-set, so a replayed delivery draws an idempotent already_seen and re-fires no hook. The window defaults to 24h and is set with an optional replay_window_seconds (a positive int) in config; a delivery with no X-GitHub-Delivery header, or a non-positive/non-int replay_window_seconds, fails CLOSED.

Secret hygiene. The secret lives only in an environment variable. Never commit it to a file, a fixture, a manifest, or a URL. The example secret below (It's a Secret to Everybody) is GitHub's own published example — it is a placeholder for docs and tests, never a real secret.

End-to-end

1. Create the GitHub webhook. In your repo → Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook, set the Payload URL to your platform's public door, e.g. https://<your-host>/universal_webhook/github-events, Content type application/json, and a Secret. Store that same secret in the environment as GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET on the platform.

2. List tai42_webhook_verifier_github in the manifest under lifecycle_modules (see above) so the github verifier is registered at boot.

3. Bind the verifier to the topic. Through the skeleton's authenticated route:

   curl -X PUT https://<your-host>/api/hooks/topics/github-events/verifier \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $TAI_API_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"verifier": "github", "config": {"secret_env": "GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET"}}'
   

4. Register a hook on the github-events topic that runs a demo tool (e.g. a tool that logs the event). Now push to the repo → GitHub signs and POSTs the delivery → the door verifies the X-Hub-Signature-256 HMAC → the hook fires and the tool runs. A delivery with a missing, malformed, or wrong signature is rejected before any hook runs.

Simulate a signed delivery locally

Compute the signature over the exact body with the same secret and POST it — this is what a genuine GitHub delivery looks like on the wire:

# The secret lives only in the environment — never hard-coded here.
export GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET="It's a Secret to Everybody"   # GitHub's example placeholder

BODY='{"zen":"Keep it logically awesome."}'
SIG="sha256=$(printf '%s' "$BODY" \
  | openssl dgst -sha256 -hmac "$GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET" -r \
  | cut -d ' ' -f1)"

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8000/universal_webhook/github-events \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Event: ping" \
  -H "X-Hub-Signature-256: $SIG" \
  --data-raw "$BODY"

printf '%s' (not echo) sends the body with no trailing newline, so the bytes signed match the bytes POSTed exactly — the HMAC is over the raw body.

Verification rules

verify(body, headers, config) is an async method — the caller awaits it. It raises WebhookVerificationError when:

• the X-Hub-Signature-256 header is missing (lookup is case-insensitive),
• the value is not prefixed exactly sha256= (e.g. a sha1= prefix),
• the hex after the prefix is not exactly 64 characters (wrong/truncated),
• the recomputed digest does not match (the final compare uses hmac.compare_digest — constant-time).

A missing secret_env env var raises KeyError and an empty one raises ValueError (fails closed), not WebhookVerificationError.

Development

uv venv --python 3.13
uv pip install --no-sources --group dev --editable .
uv run --no-sync pytest --cov --cov-report=term-missing
uv run --no-sync ruff check .
uv run --no-sync ruff format --check .
uv run --no-sync pyright

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.