Deploy Hooks

Last updated 12 August 2016

Deploy hooks allow you to receive a notification whenever a new version of your app is pushed to Heroku. It’s useful to keep you and your team informed about deploys, while it can also be used to integrate different systems together.

After one or more hooks are setup, git push will show that they are scheduled to run:

$ git push heroku master
...

-----> Heroku receiving push
-----> Rails app detected
       Compiled slug size is 76K
-----> Launching...... done
-----> Deploy hooks scheduled, check output in your logs
       http://myapp.heroku.com deployed to Heroku

Hook output and errors appear in your application’s logs:

$ heroku logs
...
2011-03-15T15:07:29-07:00 heroku[deployhooks]: Sent email notification to me@example.com

Each deploy hook is its own add-on. This allows you to pick and choose one or more that you want. The deploy hooks include email, IRC, Basecamp, Campfire, HipChat and a generic HTTP hook. You can create and configure each deployhook through the Heroku Dashboard as well as through the command-line.

Dashboard

You can create the “Deploy Hooks” add-on through dashboard through the Resources tab. You can find specific instructions here.

Once you create the add-on, you can then configure it by navigating to the app in the Heroku Dashboard, going to the Resources tab and then clicking on the Deploy Hooks add-on you want to configure. The Deploy Hooks add-on configuration page will accept these variables.

Deploy Hooks add-on configuration page

Email

This hook will send one or more emails. You can specify the subject and body, as follows:

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:email \
    --recipient=me@example.com \
    --subject="Myapp Deployed" \
    --body="{{user}} deployed app"
Adding deployhooks:email to myapp...Done.

Email multiple recipients by adding additional email addresses separated by spaces.

IRC

An IRC bot will connect to the specified server and message the room.

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:irc \
    --server=irc.freenode.net \
    --room=devlounge \
    --nick=mydeploybot \
    --password=secret \
    --message="{{user}} deployed app"
Adding deployhooks:irc to myapp...Done.

Nick and password are optional. You can also set the server port by sending port=1234.

Basecamp

This hook will post a message to any Basecamp account you specify, under a certain project and post category (both specified by the name).

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:basecamp \
    --url=http://myaccount.basecamphq.com \
    --username=00000000 \
    --project=myapp \
    --category=deploys \
    --title="{{user}} deployed myapp" \
    --body="check it at {{url}}"
Adding deployhooks:basecamp to myapp...Done.

NOTE: Please put your API Key under the username param above.

Campfire

Have any Campfire room receive an automated message when your app is pushed.

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:campfire \
    --url=mycampfiresubdomain \
    --ssl=1 \
    --api_key=0000000 \
    --room=devlounge \
    --message="{{user}} deployed myapp"
Adding deployhooks:campfire to myapp...Done.

HipChat

This hook wil post a message to a HipChat room of your choice on app push. An authentication key is required for Heroku to access your HipChat account. To create one, fill out the form found in API Auth Tokens (available to group admins only). For maximum safety, set the type to “notification”.

To make Heroku send notices to a HipChat room on deploy, do the following:

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:hipchat \
    --auth_token=my_auth_token \
    --room="My Company's Room" \
    --message="{{user}} deployed myapp"
Adding deployhooks:hipchat to myapp...Done.

Additional optional settings are:

  • from: Name of the user sending the message (default: “Heroku”).
  • notify: Boolean value (1 or 0) indicating whether the message should trigger a notification to users in the room (default: “1”).
  • color: The background color of the message. (default: “purple”).
  • message_format: Can be set to “text” for plain text messages, or “html” to support basic tags. (default: “html”).
  • hipchat_api_url: API URL of HipChat server (in case of on-prem, non-hosted HipChat install). Example value is https://api.hipchat.com/v1/rooms/message. Details.

Check the HipChat API docs for more info on these options.

HTTP post hook

Performs an HTTP post to URL of your choice.

$ heroku addons:create deployhooks:http \
    --url=http://example.org
Adding deployhooks:http to myapp...Done.

The parameters are POSTed to your url with a mime type of application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

The parameters included in the request are the same as the variables available in the hook message: app, user, url, head, head_long, git_log and release. See below for their descriptions.

This is an example payload:

app=secure-woodland-9775&user=example%40example.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsecure-woodland-9775.herokuapp.com&head=4f20bdd&head_long=4f20bdd&prev_head=&git_log=%20%20*%20Michael%20Friis%3A%20add%20bar&release=v7

Customizing messages

It’s possible to use variables when defining the message, title or subject of any deploy hook attribute.

For instance, use {{user}} when you want to see who deployed, and that text will be replaced for the actual user email whenever a hook is executed.

Available variables are:

  • app: the app name
  • user: email of the user deploying the app
  • url: the app URL (e.g. http://myapp.heroku.com)
  • head: short identifier of the latest commit (first seven bytes of the SHA1 git object name)
  • head_long: identifier of the latest commit (SHA1 git object name)
  • git_log: shortened log of commits between this deploy and the last, or the description field for releases triggered via the Platform API
  • release: identifier for the release (eg. v7)

FAQ

DeployHooks git_log not supported with Heroku Pipeline promotion and GitHub deploys

The git_log variable is only supported when using the git deployment mechanism.

Heroku supports three deployment mechanisms: git, Pipeline promotion and GitHub integration. With Pipeline promotion and GitHub automatic or manual deploys, DeployHooks does not have access to your git log and you will see the git_log variable be blank. The git_log variable can only be set with a pure git deployment (e.g. git push heroku master).

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