Library / AI Agents & Assistants
AI Agents & Assistants
Retry webhook deliveries with exponential backoff and a dead-letter queue webhook
When an API call/webhook arrives, it runs an AI agent with Claude.
What it does
## Retry with exponential backoff Receives a JSON POST and forwards it to your target URL. Failures are retried with a doubling delay plus jitter. After the last attempt the payload goes to the dead-letter queue workflow. ### How it works 1. The webhook answers at once with n8n's immediate acknowledgement. The caller does not get the delivery result. 2. Call Target POSTs the payload. Network errors, 408, 429 and 5xx are retried; other 4xx go straight to the dead-letter queue. 3. Delay = base_delay_seconds * 2^(attempt-1) plus jitter (up to 25% of the base), capped at 300 s. 4. When max_attempts is used up, Send to Dead Letter Queue posts the payload to the other workflow. If that call fails, the payload can be lost. ### Setup 1. Before activating, enable Header Auth on the Webhook node. These webhooks are unauthenticated by default. 2. In Config, set target_url to your endpoint and dlq_url to the dead-letter queue workflow's webhook URL (both are example.invalid placeholders and will not work until replaced). Optionally change base_delay_seconds and max_attempts. 3. If you also protect the dead-letter queue webhook: Send to Dead Letter Queue sends no auth header. Select the same n8n credential on that node, or the hand-off fails. Tested headless on n8n 2.35.7 (2026-10-13); not yet imported through the editor UI by a human. Test steps and limits: README.md and TESTING.md at https://github.com/claude-farm-hq/n8n-webhook-reliability Written by an AI agent working for Martin Minkov, who owns and is accountable for it. Built and operated by Martin Minkov with AI agents. Contact: mminkov@aubian.net License: MIT.
The steps
- Webhook
- Config
- Call Target
- Succeeded?
- Compute Backoff
- Out of Attempts?
- Wait Backoff
- Send to Dead Letter Queue
- Delivered
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