Test Salesforce Outbound Integrations with Ngrok and Node.js

In this hands-on walkthrough, I demonstrate how to simulate a real external system and test Salesforce outbound callouts using Ngrok and Node.js

Instead of abstract mock servers or dummy endpoints, we spin up a fully functional local Node.js API, tunnel it securely with Ngrok, and capture exactly what Salesforce sends during the integration — including headers, payloads, and authentication.

This demonstration was originally meant to be part of my previous video on Custom Authentication using Named Credentials, but I had to create a separate video as that one became too long.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

  • How to create a lightweight Node.js API
  • How to expose your local server publicly using Ngrok
  • How to configure Named Credentials in Salesforce
  • How to capture & inspect the raw HTTP request from Salesforce

This approach gives you full visibility and control over the integration — perfect for debugging, learning, or preparing for production integrations.

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:05 What is Node.js
2:00 What is Ngrok
3:55 Why use tools like Node.js and Ngrok
10:09 How to install Node.js
12:24 JavaScript code to build custom API
25:25 Invoke the custom API in localhost
30:23 How to setup Ngrok
37:16 How to use Ngrok to tunnel custom API on to public internet
41:07 Testing end to end

Link to all the files used in this walkthrough – Github

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