[GH-ISSUE #577] Allow custom replies as opposed to static OK #423

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opened 2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00 by kerem · 3 comments

kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00

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Originally created by @piramiday on GitHub (Oct 21, 2021).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks/issues/577

at present, the web URLs return a static OK.

curl -i https://hc-ping.com/[...]
HTTP/2 200 
server: nginx
date: [...]
content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
content-length: 2
access-control-allow-origin: *

OK

it might be useful for certain situations to be able to customize the success message returned by HealthChecks in order to specify something else, i.e. a static message which can be different for each check.

(dumb) example:
let's think of a check to make sure my RSS feeds are working.
since the Healthcheck URL does not return a valid RSS feed, my client will not let me store it as a custom feed.
if Healthcheck could pretend to return a valid RSS (empty) feed, then my client could accept it and I would have a robust way of knowing that my client is fetching feeds as necessary.

Originally created by @piramiday on GitHub (Oct 21, 2021). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks/issues/577 at present, the web URLs return a static `OK`. ``` curl -i https://hc-ping.com/[...] HTTP/2 200 server: nginx date: [...] content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 content-length: 2 access-control-allow-origin: * OK ``` it might be useful for certain situations to be able to customize the success message returned by HealthChecks in order to specify something else, i.e. a static message which can be different for each check. (dumb) example: let's think of a check to make sure my RSS feeds are working. since the Healthcheck URL does not return a valid RSS feed, my client will not let me store it as a custom feed. if Healthcheck could pretend to return a valid RSS (empty) feed, then my client could accept it and I would have a robust way of knowing that my client is fetching feeds as necessary.

kerem

2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00

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kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00

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@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Oct 22, 2021):

Interesting idea, thanks for the suggestion!

I would prefer if there was no additional configuration on the server side. Instead, the client could specify the preferred format in URL somehow. For example, if the normal ping URL is

https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55

A variation for RSS, and, say, 1x1 transparent GIF could be perhaps:

https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55.rss
https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55.gif

@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Oct 22, 2021): Interesting idea, thanks for the suggestion! I would prefer if there was no additional configuration on the server side. Instead, the client could specify the preferred format in URL somehow. For example, if the normal ping URL is https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55 A variation for RSS, and, say, 1x1 transparent GIF could be perhaps: https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55.rss https://hc-ping.com/0ec6a754-2efe-47c3-865c-a31d7d6b1d55.gif

kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00

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@piramiday commented on GitHub (Oct 22, 2021):

in this configuration, what would the server respond to the client GETting the https://hc-ping.com/XXX.rss URL?
something along the lines of:

<rss version="2.0">
   <channel>
      <title>Healthchecks</title>
      <lastBuildDate>[...]</lastBuildDate>
   </channel>
</rss>

and so on?

@piramiday commented on GitHub (Oct 22, 2021): in this configuration, what would the server respond to the client GETting the `https://hc-ping.com/XXX.rss` URL? something along the lines of: ``` <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Healthchecks</title> <lastBuildDate>[...]</lastBuildDate> </channel> </rss> ``` and so on?

kerem commented

2026-02-25 23:42:24 +03:00

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@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Dec 19, 2022):

I'm not planning to work on this feature. I think there are niche use-cases where it would be useful, but they seem too niche to warrant the extra complexity (not so much code complexity, but the documentation and the API surface area).

Possible workarounds –

Self-hosted instances can perhaps configure the reverse proxy to rewrite responses and/or add response headers. For nginx, for example, there is http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_sub_module.html

For the hosted service, one could write a lambda function (or cloudflare worker or whatever) that wraps a ping endpoint and modifies its response. It's an extra hassle, but it's an option.

@cuu508 commented on GitHub (Dec 19, 2022): I'm not planning to work on this feature. I think there are niche use-cases where it would be useful, but they seem too niche to warrant the extra complexity (not so much code complexity, but the documentation and the API surface area). Possible workarounds – Self-hosted instances can perhaps configure the reverse proxy to rewrite responses and/or add response headers. For nginx, for example, there is http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_sub_module.html For the hosted service, one could write a lambda function (or cloudflare worker or whatever) that wraps a ping endpoint and modifies its response. It's an extra hassle, but it's an option.

kerem referenced this issue

2026-02-25 23:43:05 +03:00

[GH-ISSUE #883] Feature request: Google chat integration #621

kerem referenced this issue

2026-02-26 00:30:51 +03:00

[PR #1172] [MERGED] Add Google Chat integration (WIP) #1088