---
title: "Bringing your Stripe objects to life with Workbench"
description: "The post demonstrates how Stripe Workbench’s Inspector can be used to examine a PaymentIntent throughout its lifecycle and diagnose payment workflow issues. It maps states including requires_payment_method, processing, requires_action, succeeded, and canceled, showing how the status property changes as inputs and decisions move the object through a state machine. The walkthrough creates and confirms test PaymentIntents with Stripe Shell commands, including a 3DS-required card that produces a requires_action state and a use_stripe_sdk next_action. It also describes reacting to state changes through webhook endpoints or Amazon EventBridge, using the Inspector to identify friction such as PaymentIntents stalled at requires_action and to debug abandoned payments."
---

# Bringing your Stripe objects to life with Workbench

[Stripe](https://yomu.fyi/company/stripe) · Ben Smith · Aug 29, 2024

**Type:** Tutorial

## Summary

The post demonstrates how Stripe Workbench’s Inspector can be used to examine a PaymentIntent throughout its lifecycle and diagnose payment workflow issues. It maps states including requires\_payment\_method, processing, requires\_action, succeeded, and canceled, showing how the status property changes as inputs and decisions move the object through a state machine. The walkthrough creates and confirms test PaymentIntents with Stripe Shell commands, including a 3DS-required card that produces a requires\_action state and a use\_stripe\_sdk next\_action. It also describes reacting to state changes through webhook endpoints or Amazon EventBridge, using the Inspector to identify friction such as PaymentIntents stalled at requires\_action and to debug abandoned payments.

## Context

Developers had been tracking API object state transitions across multiple dashboard windows and tabs. The post connects this visibility problem with diagnosing payment workflow issues, checkout friction, operational failures, and possible revenue loss.

## Approach / What changed

Use the Stripe Workbench Inspector as a contextual view of API objects, model PaymentIntent progression as a state machine, and exercise transitions with Stripe Shell commands. For complex flows, complete 3DS with stripe.handleCardAction(client\_secret), then react to payment events through a verified HTTP endpoint or Amazon EventBridge.

## Takeaways

- A PaymentIntent can move through states such as requires\_payment\_method, requires\_confirmation, requires\_action, processing, requires\_capture, succeeded, and canceled.
- A 3DS-required test card produces requires\_action with a next\_action of use\_stripe\_sdk; the client-side flow uses stripe.handleCardAction(client\_secret), while failed authentication returns the PaymentIntent to requires\_payment\_method.
- Payment state changes can be delivered to an HTTP endpoint or Amazon EventBridge. HTTP handlers must verify the Stripe-Signature header before processing events.

**Tags:** [AWS](https://yomu.fyi/topic/aws), [Developer Experience](https://yomu.fyi/topic/developer-experience), [Observability](https://yomu.fyi/topic/observability), [Reliability](https://yomu.fyi/topic/reliability)

- Source: [Stripe](https://stripe.dev/blog/bringing-your-stripe-objects-to-life-with-workbench)
- Source URL: https://stripe.dev/blog/bringing-your-stripe-objects-to-life-with-workbench
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-08-28T08:56:02.708Z

[Read original post](https://stripe.dev/blog/bringing-your-stripe-objects-to-life-with-workbench)