Configuring Alert Rules in Monitor
Alert rules tell StackBloom Monitor when and how to notify you. Set up the right triggers and channels so your team is the first to know when something breaks — before your users notice.
Step 1: Navigate to the Alerts section
From your Monitor dashboard, click Alerts in the left sidebar. This section lists all your existing alert rules and shows which monitors they are attached to. Click New Alert Rule to start creating one.
- Alert rules can be applied to one monitor or shared across multiple monitors
- Existing rules can be duplicated and modified to save time
- Disabled rules are paused and will not send notifications
Step 2: Create an alert rule with a name and trigger condition
Give your alert rule a descriptive name (e.g., "Production API Down") and choose the condition that should trigger it. Conditions let you avoid noisy alerts from brief blips.
- Down for X consecutive checks — trigger only after sustained downtime
- Response time > Y ms — alert when performance degrades
- SSL expiring within N days — catch certificate issues early
- Keyword missing from response — detect silent failures
- Combining conditions reduces false positives significantly
Step 3: Choose notification channels
Select one or more channels where alerts will be delivered. You can mix and match channels for each rule to reach the right people the right way.
- Email — sends an alert email to one or more addresses
- Slack — posts a message to a specified Slack channel
- Webhook — sends a POST request to your custom endpoint
- SMS — text message for urgent, high-priority alerts
- Channels must be configured in Integrations before they appear here
Step 4: Set an escalation policy
Escalation policies ensure that if the first notification is missed, additional alerts are sent. Configure how long to wait before re-notifying or escalating to a different channel.
- Set a "remind after N minutes" interval to repeat the alert while the monitor is still down
- Add a secondary channel that activates after the first reminder
- Configure a maximum number of reminders to prevent notification fatigue
- Escalation stops automatically when the incident is resolved
Step 5: Enable and test your alert rule
Save your alert rule and toggle it to Enabled. Use the Send Test Alert button to verify that notifications arrive correctly across all configured channels before relying on the rule in production.
- Test alerts are clearly labeled as tests and will not create an incident
- Check your Slack, email, and webhook endpoints after sending a test
- If a test alert doesn't arrive, verify your integration credentials in Settings
💡 Tip: Use multiple channels for critical monitors. For example, send email for all alerts but also trigger SMS and Slack for monitors that are down for more than 3 consecutive checks. This layered approach ensures nothing slips through.