Receiving Messages and User Events
Setting up webhooks
To receive inbound messages and status updates, configure a webhook in the Pinnacle Dashboard:
Create a webhook
Navigate to Development > Webhooks and click Create new webhook. Give it a descriptive name and enter your endpoint URL. For local development, use an ngrok tunnel.
Save the signing secret
After creation, copy the signing secret (prefixed pss_) and store it in your environment as PINNACLE_SIGNING_SECRET.
Attach senders
Attach one or more phone numbers or RCS agent IDs to the webhook so it receives their events. You can attach and detach senders in the dashboard or in bulk via POST /webhooks/attach and POST /webhooks/detach.
Sandbox numbers
For sandbox numbers, ensure you’ve whitelisted the recipient device and verified the 4-digit PIN before testing.
Custom request headers
You can configure additional HTTP headers that Pinnacle includes on every webhook delivery — for example, a static API key, an internal routing token, or a tracing identifier. Set them in the dashboard when creating or editing a webhook, or pass an optional headers map to POST /webhooks/attach. Headers can be supplied whether you’re creating a new webhook or attaching an existing one by ID:
Header rules:
- Names must match the pattern
^[A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9_-]*$— start with a letter or digit, then letters, digits,-, or_. - Names are case-insensitive per RFC 9110 and normalized to uppercase before storage and sending.
- Values must be strings.
- The
PINNACLE-SIGNING-SECRETheader is reserved for signature verification — any attempt to set it is silently stripped.
Overwrite semantics when using webhookId:
- Supplying
headersreplaces the entire stored header map on that webhook. - Omitting
headersleaves the stored headers unchanged. - Passing an empty object
{}clears all custom headers from the webhook.
Processing webhook events
Pinnacle SDKs provide a process() method to securely handle incoming webhook requests:
- Verifies webhook signatures by comparing your signing secret with the
PINNACLE-SIGNING-SECRETin the headers. - Parses and validates the request payload.
- Returns fully typed
MessageEventorUserEventobjects.
Event types
For full code examples in TypeScript, Python, and Ruby, see the SMS quickstart and RCS quickstart receive guides.
Form submissions
When a recipient fills out a form delivered via POST /forms/send, a FORM.SUBMISSION event is delivered to every webhook subscribed to the sender. The payload differs from message events — there is no message or status field; instead the event carries a resolved snapshot of the form definition paired with the submitted values so you can render or route on the response without an extra get_form call.
Payload shape:
Notes:
senderat the event root is convenience-duplicated fromsubmission.fromso you can route on it without unwrapping.conversationisnullwhen the form was minted URL-only (notoat send time). In that casesubmission.tois alsonull.- For
can_update=trueforms, each edit fires a freshFORM.SUBMISSIONevent with the updated values. - Every field from the form definition is included in
submission.fields, even those the recipient left blank — checkvaluefornullor an empty array.
RCS Fallback Messages
When you send an RCS message with a fallback configured and the RCS message cannot be delivered (e.g., the recipient’s device doesn’t support RCS), the system will automatically send the fallback SMS/MMS message instead.
Webhook routing
Fallback events are delivered to two different webhooks:
-
RCS agent’s webhook receives a
MESSAGE.STATUSevent with:status:FALLBACK_SENTfallbackMessage: Details of the SMS/MMS message that was sent instead, including its message ID, type, sender, recipient, text, and any media URLs.
-
Fallback phone number’s webhook receives
MESSAGE.STATUSevents related to the fallback message that was sent.

