Alerts API

Creating alerts
Searching alerts
Obtain information on a single alert
Updating alerts
Deleting alerts
Mute an alert
Unmute alerts
Check if an alert is muted
Mute multiple alerts
Unmute multiple alerts
Obtain alert history

Creating alerts

POST /v2/alerts/

Request format:

{
  "name": "string",
  "metric": "string",
  "alert_criteria":
    {
      "type": "above" | "below" | "outside_bounds" | "missing",
      "above_value": 123,
      "below_value": 123,
      "time_period": 123,
    },
  "additional_criteria":
    {
     "b":
       {
        "type": "above" | "below" | "outside_bounds" | "missing",
        "above_value": 123,
        "below_value": 123,
        "time_period": 123,
        "metric": "string"
       }
    },
  "expression": "a && b",
  "scheduled_mutes": ["scheduled_mute_id1", "scheduled_mute_id2", "scheduled_mute_id3"],
  "notification_channels": ["channel_id1", "channel_name1", "channel_id2"],
  "notification_type": "state_change" | ["state_change"] | ["every", 123],
  "info": "string",
  "on_query_failure": null | "ignore" | "notify"
}

Parameters:

name

[REQUIRED]

A name that uniquely identifies this alert.
metric

[REQUIRED]

The graphite metric query to alert on.
alert_criteria

[REQUIRED]

The criteria for which the alert triggers.
type

[REQUIRED]

The alert type, valid values are above, below, outside_bounds and missing.
additional_criteria
Any extra metrics that are to be included when evaluating the state of an alert. Note that any additional criteria must be referenced in the expression field. A maximum of 3 additional criteria is allowed. Example:
```
{"f": {"type": "above", "above_value": 5, "metric": "additional.metric.to.alert.on"}
```
where f is also referenced in the expression field. Defaults to {}.
expression

A conditional relationship between multiple metrics. It allows for the combining of multiple alert criteria. It’s represented in the format of a boolean expression where each individual alert criteria is denoted as a single letter. The letter a is reserved for the criteria defined in alert_criteria.

Only required when additional alerting criteria are defined. Maximum number of 3 additional criteria allowed (4 including the default alert criteria). && takes higher precedence over || Examples: a && b, a || c. Defaults to a.
above_value

The value above which the alert should trigger. Required for alert type above and outside_bounds.
below_value

The value below which the alert should trigger. Required for alert type below and outside_bounds.
time_period

The time period in minutes for which the threshold needs to be breached. Leave empty for an instantaneous evaluation. Required for alert type missing.
scheduled_mutes

List of scheduled mutes for this alert. Must be a list of scheduled mute IDs. Defaults to an empty list.
notification_channels

List of notification channels for this alert. This can be a combination of channel names and channel IDs. Defaults to Email me if none exists.
notification_type

The type of notification interval for this alert. Options are state_change (['state_change'] or 'state_change' is valid) or ['every', time_in_minutes]. This lets you control how often you want to be notified for an alert. Defaults to ['every', 60] if empty.
info

Alert message sent with notifications. Can contain an arbitrary string which may contain a description of the alert, steps to follow or references to documentation.
on_query_failure

Controls if a notification is delivered if the graphite function query fails. Only valid for Alerts that have graphite function in the metric field. Defaults to notify. Graphite function query can fail due to timeouts from matching too many metrics, being malformed or if it returns duplicate metrics due to aliasing.

Note:: Our UI doesn’t fully support composites at the moment. As a result, composite alerts cannot be edited via the UI - it needs to be done via the API. The alert overview page (when you click the eye button on an alert) will only display one metric for the alert instead of all the metrics associated. However the alert notifications are working and will display the graph of the last metric that breached the alert threshold. So for example, if the alert is a && b, and a breaches the threshold, then a few minutes later b breaches it’s threshold, the alert notification will show the metric graph for b.

Alert criteria examples:

Create an alert that triggers if the metric is missing for 10 minutes.

"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "missing",
  "time_period": 10
}

Create an alert that triggers if the metric is above 5.6 ever.

"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "above",
  "above_value": 5.6
}

Create an alert that triggers if the metric is below 2.1 or above 5.6 ever.

"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "outside_bounds",
  "above_value": 5.6,
  "below_value": 2.1
}

Create an alert that triggers if the metric is below 2.1 or above 5.6 for 10 minutes

"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "outside_bounds",
  "above_value": 5.6,
  "below_value": 2.1,
  "time_period": 10
}

Composite Alerts

Create an alert when one metric is above 80 and another is below 20

"metric": "my.first.metric",
"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "above",
  "above_value": 80
},
"additional_criteria": {
  "b": {
    "type": "below",
    "below_value": 20,
    "metric": "my.second.metric"
  }
},
"expression": "a && b",

Create an alert when one metric is below 50 or another is below 30

"metric": "my.first.metric",
  "alert_criteria": {
    "type": "above",
    "above_value": 50
  },
  "additional_criteria": {
    "c": {
      "type": "below",
      "below_value": 30,
      "metric": "my.second.metric"
    }
  },
  "expression": "a || c"

Create an alert when one metric (A) is below 50 and another (B) is above 60 or if a third (C) is above 120. Note that performing an && on two monitors gets preference over || so this alert expression will be evaluated as (A && B) || C

"metric": "my.first.metric",
"alert_criteria": {
  "type": "below",
  "below_value": 50
},
"additional_criteria": {
  "b": {
    "type": "above",
    "above_value": 60,
    "metric": "my.second.metric"
  },
  "c": {
    "type": "above",
    "above_value": 120,
    "metric": "my.third.metric"
  }
},
"expression": "A && B || C"

Curl example:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d \
'{"name": "alert1", "metric": "test.metric.1", "alert_criteria": {"type": "above", "above_value": 5, "time_period": 2}}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/"

Creates an alert named alert1 for metric test.metric.1 that triggers if the value is above 5 for 2 minutes with the Email me notification type.

Response format:

HTTP/1.1 201
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id": "<alert_id>",
  "url": "/v2/alerts/<alert_id>"
}

Parameters:

idAn id that uniquely identifies this alert.
urlURL endpoint that can used to perform actions on this alert.

Status Codes:

201 - Created
400 - Invalid format.
409 - Alert with the name alredy exists.

Searching alerts

GET /v2/alerts/? - Returns a JSON object containing information on alerts matching the search query. Returns all the alerts if the parameter is left empty.

Curl example:

curl -X GET "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/?"

Available Parameters (default values in brackets):

name

Format: &name=<alert_name1>&name=<alert_name2>

The alert name to search for. Can specify multiple alert names to search for more than 1. Performs an OR operation so a query such as &name=<alert_name1>&name=<alert_name2> will return info on both alert_name1 and alert_name2
id

Format: &id=<id1>&id=<alert_id2>

The alert id to search for. Can specify multiple ids to search for more than 1. Performs an OR operation so a query such as &id=<alert_id1>&id=<alert_id2> will return info on both alert_id1 and alert_id2.
search

Format: &search=<search_string>

A more generic search that will match any alert whose alert name, metric name or notification channel name contains the search string.
page (1)

Format: &page=1

The page number to query. Used if there are more alerts than can be displayed in a single request.
max (100)

Format: &max=50

The maximum number of alerts to display. Limit of 100.

Specifying both alert_name and alert_id performs an OR operation and returns alert that match either criteria. Including a search string performs an AND operation with the other criteria.

Response format:

HTTP/1.1 201
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "alerts": [
    {
    "name": "Name of the alert",
    "id": "unique id of the alert",
    "alert_criteria": {
      "type": "type of alert",
      "above_value": 123,
      "below_value": 123,
      "time_period": 123
    }
    "notification_channels": ["<list of channel ids>"],
    "notification_type": ["state_change" ] | ["every", 123],
    "scheduled_mutes": ["<list of scheduled mute ids"],
    "currently_triggered_metrics": [] | ["List of metrics that triggered the alert."],
    "muted": True |  False,
    "status": "alerting" | "healthy",
    "info": "alert info" | null,
    "on_query_failure": null | "notify" | "ignore"
   }
  ]
  "next_page": False | page number
}

Status Codes:

200 - OK
400 - Invalid form data

Obtain information on a single alert

GET /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/ - Returns information on a single alert.

Curl example:

curl -X GET "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/"

Obtain information on the alert identified by the id 123-456-789.

Alert response format:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "name": "Name of the alert",
    "id": "unique id of the alert",
    "alert_criteria": {
    "type": "type of alert",
    "above_value": 123,
    "below_value": 123,
    "time_period": 123
  },
  "expression": "a",
  "notification_channels": ["<list of channel ids>"],
  "scheduled_mutes": ["<list of scheduled mute ids>"],
  "currently_triggered_metrics": [] | ["List of metrics that triggered the alert."],
    "notification_type": ["state_change" ] | ["every", 123],
    "muted": True |  False,
    "status": "alerting" | "healthy",
  "info": "alert info" | null,
  "on_query_failure": null | "notify" | "ignore"
}

Status Codes:

200 - OK
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Updating alerts

PUT /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/ - Update attributes of an alert identified by the alert id.

Curl Example

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X PUT -d \
'{"alert_criteria": {"time_period": 3, "type": "below", "below_value": 6}}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/"

Modify the alert identified by the id 123-456-789 to alert if the metric values are below 6 for 3 minutes.

Request format:

{
  "name": "string",
  "metric": "string",
  "info": "string",
  "alert_criteria":
    {
      "type": "above" | "below" | "outside_bounds" | "missing",
      "above_value": 123,
      "below_value": 123,
      "time_period": 123
    },
  "scheduled_mutes": ["scheduled_mute_id1", "scheduled_mute_id2", "scheduled_mute_id3"],
  "notification_channels": ["channel_id1", "channel_id2", "channel_id3"],
  "notification_type": "state_change" | ["state_change"] | ["every", X],
}

Each field is optional and only the specified fields are updated.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
400 - Invalid form data.
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Deleting alerts

DELETE /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/ - Update an alert identified by the alert id.

Curl Example

curl -X DELETE "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/"

Delete the alert identified by the id 123-456-789.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Mute an alert

POST /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/muted/ - Mute alerts identified by the alert id.

Curl Example

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"duration":60}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/muted/"

Mute the alert identified by the id 123-456-789 for 60 minutes.

Request format:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{"duration": 60}

Parameters:

duration

[REQUIRED]

Time to mute in minutes.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.
400 - Invalid form data.

Unmute alerts

DELETE /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/muted/ - Unmute an alert identified by the alert id.

Curl Example

curl -X DELETE "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/muted/"

Unmute the alert identified by the id 123-456-789`.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Check if an alert is muted

GET /v2/alerts/<alert_id>/muted/ - Get the mute status of an alert identified by the alert id.

Curl Example

curl -X GET "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/123-456-789/muted/"

Obtain information on the mute status of the alert identified by the id 123-456-789. Also provides a list of the scheduled mutes currently attached to the alert.

Response format:

HTTP/1.1 200
 Content-Type: application/json

{
 "id": "alert_id",
 "name": "alert_name",
 "muted": True |  False,
 "duration": Remaining time in minutes,
 "scheduled_mutes": ["<list of scheduled mute ids>"]
}

Status Codes:

200 - OK
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Mute multiple alerts

POST /v2/alerts/muted/ - Mute multiple alerts.

Curl examples:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"ids": ["123-456-789", "321-654-987"], "duration":60}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/muted/"

Mute alerts 123-456-789 and 321-654-987 for 60 minutes.

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"search": "search_string", "duration":60}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/muted/"

Mute alerts with alert name, metric name or notification channel name containing search_string for 60 minutes.

Request format:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{"ids": ["alert_id1", "alert_id2"],
 "duration": 60}

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{"search": "search_string",
 "duration": 60}

Parameters:

ids

List of alert ids to mute.
search

String to filter alerts. Every alert with an alert name, metric name, or notification channel name containing this string will be muted.
duration

[REQUIRED]

Time to mute in minutes.

If both ids and search are empty, then all alerts will be muted.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
400 - Invalid request
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Unmute multiple alerts

DELETE /v2/alerts/muted/ - Mute multiple alerts.

Curl examples:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"ids": ["123-456-789", "321-654-987"]}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/muted/"

Unmute alerts 123-456-789 and 321-654-987.

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"search": "search_string"}' \
"https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/muted/"

Unmute alerts with alert name, metric name or notification channel name containing search_string.

Request format:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{"ids": ["alert_id1", "alert_id2"]}

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{"search": "search_string"}

Parameters:

ids

List of alert ids to unmute.
search

String to filter alerts. Every alert with an alert name, metric name, or notification channel name containing this string will be unmuted.

If both ids and search are empty, then all alerts will be unmuted.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
400 - Invalid request
404 - Alert doesn’t exist.

Obtain alert history

GET /v2/alerts/history/? - Obtain the alert history.

Curl example:

curl -X GET "https://YOUR-API-KEY@api.hostedgraphite.com/v2/alerts/history/?id=123-456-789

Obtain alert history of the alert identified by the id 123-456-789.

Available Parameters (default values in brackets):

id

The alert id to search for. Can specify multiple ids to search for more than 1. Returns history of all alerts if empty

Format: &alert_id=<alert_id1>&alert_id=<alert_id2>
days (3)

The number of days to obtain history of.

Format: &days=1

Response format:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  {"<alert_id_1>": [{
      "status": "alerting" | "recovered",
      "value": null | 123,
      "time": "unix_timestamp",
      "metric": "The metric that triggered this."
      },],
  }
  {"<alert_id_2>": [{
      "status": "alerting" | "healthy",
      "value": null | 123,
      "time": "unix_timestamp",
      "metric": "The metric that triggered this."
      },],
  }
}

status

The status that was recorded. Cant be either ‘alerting’ or ‘recovered’.
value

The value at which the alert triggered or recovered. Value will be null if the alert was a missing metric alert.
time

Unix timestamp at which the alert triggered or recovered.

Status Codes:

200 - OK
400 - Invalid query parameters

Alerts API

Table of Contents

Creating alerts

Searching alerts

Obtain information on a single alert

Updating alerts

Deleting alerts

Mute an alert

Unmute alerts

Check if an alert is muted

Mute multiple alerts

Unmute multiple alerts

Obtain alert history