| #https://www.notion.so/n8n/Frontmatter-432c2b8dff1f43d4b1c8d20075510fe4 | |
| title: External hooks environment variables | |
| description: Environment variables to integrate external hooks into your self-hosted n8n instance. | |
| contentType: reference | |
| tags: | |
| - environment variables | |
| hide: | |
| - toc | |
| - tags | |
| # External hooks environment variables | |
| --8<-- "_snippets/self-hosting/file-based-configuration.md" | |
| You can define external hooks that n8n executes whenever a specific operation runs. Refer to [Backend hooks](/embed/configuration.md#backend-hooks) for examples of available hooks and [Hook files](/embed/configuration.md#backend-hook-files) for information on file formatting. | |
| | Variable | Type | Description | | |
| | :------- | :---- | :---------- | | |
| | `EXTERNAL_HOOK_FILES` | String | Files containing backend external hooks. Provide multiple files as a colon-separated list ("`:`"). | | |
| | `EXTERNAL_FRONTEND_HOOKS_URLS` | String | URLs to files containing frontend external hooks. Provide multiple URLs as a colon-separated list ("`:`"). | | |