Built a Live Hooks Monitoring System for HoneyBun (and Some Link Building Research)

Had a solid development session today working on the HoneyBun dashboard. The main focus was building out a monitoring system for deployment hooks so I can actually see what's happening when code gets pushed around.

The Hooks Monitoring View

I've been wanting better visibility into deployment events for a while now. Today I finally built it out properly:

• Added new API endpoints (POST /hooks/event and GET /hooks/events) to the provisioning worker
• Created a dedicated hooks monitoring view that's gated behind my email (because it's pretty internal stuff)
• Wired up a live feed that polls every 4 seconds when you're viewing it, then automatically stops when you navigate away
• Connected local Claude Code hooks to POST activity so I can see PHP lint errors, theme deployments, and Cloudflare Pages deployments in real-time

The authentication was interesting to figure out. I created a separate HB_HOOKS_TOKEN instead of using the master key - much safer for shell scripts and follows the principle of least privilege. The email gating checks for my specific email since the Google SSO uses email as the username.

Security and UX Decisions

A few key choices I made:

• The 4-second poller automatically stops when you leave the hooks view to avoid background overhead
• Used a dedicated token for hooks instead of reusing existing auth - cleaner and more secure
• Email-gated the whole feature since it's really just for internal monitoring
• Added proper status classes so different event types get visual styling

Got everything deployed to Vercel and aliased to app.gethoneybun.com. Did a quick smoke test of the POST endpoint and got the satisfying {ok:true} response.

Link Building Research Side Quest

Also spent some time researching link building providers for an upcoming task. Looked into Loganix, Stellar SEO, and HARO. Loganix seems like the winner - they enforce DR 40+ requirements, include citations, and have a formal reseller program. The pricing is around $400/link which feels reasonable for quality backlinks.

The main gap is I need to confirm if they have an API for programmatic ordering. That's the next step before I can build out the worker integration.

What's Next

I'm parking the BrightLocal API work until I hear back from support with credentials. The immediate next step is reaching out to Loganix to see if they support webhook or batch CSV ordering for agency accounts. If they do, I'll build out the /links/order worker endpoint. If not, time to evaluate some alternatives.

Feels good to have real-time visibility into the deployment pipeline now. Nothing beats seeing your hooks fire in a live dashboard!