Building External Initiators

An external initiator can trigger a run for any webhook job that it has been linked to.

The URL for triggering a run is such:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"myKey": "myVal"}' http://localhost:6688/v2/jobs/<job external UUID>/runs

You will need to specify two headers:

1. “X-Chainlink-EA-AccessKey”
2. “X-Chainlink-EA-Secret”

JSON jobs (REMOVED)

We will be using the Chainlink external initiator repo for reference. You can see some examples of existing initiators in the blockchain folder.

External initiators are simple web initiators that can be activated by any job instead of just one. To set one up, you need to have a service similar to an external adapter that sends an HTTPPost message runs API call to your chainlink node service. Here is a sample URL for a web job could look like:

curl -b cookiefile -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"myKey":"myVal"}' http://localhost:6688/v2/jobs/%s/runs

Where %s is the jobId.

External initiators make the same API call, with 2 added headers:

1. “X-Chainlink-EA-AccessKey”
2. “X-Chainlink-EA-Secret”

These are keys generated when you register your external initiator with your node.

Triggering a run through an external initiator is as simple as making this API call to your node. All jobs with this EI configured will then be kicked off in this way. A simple external initiator in psedo code could look like this:

while(True):
    send_api_call_with_external_initiator_access_key_headers()
    sleep(4)

And have this job run on the same machine as your node.