Grafana alerting

Grafana Alerting & IRM

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/alerting.md

Common Workflows

Provisioning a new alert end-to-end

1. Create contact points (where notifications go):

   curl -X POST https://grafana.example.com/api/v1/provisioning/contact-points \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d @contact-points.json
   

   Verify:

   curl https://grafana.example.com/api/v1/provisioning/contact-points \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' | jq '.[].name'
   

2. Add notification policies (which alerts go where) — see § Notification policies below for the matchers pattern.

3. Write the alert rule — pick the type:

   • Grafana-managed → see references/alerting.md § Grafana-managed alert rule
   • Prometheus/Mimir ruler → see references/alerting.md § Prometheus / Mimir alert rule
   • Loki LogQL → see references/alerting.md § Loki alert rule

4. Verify routing before going live:

   # Force-fire a test alert from the rule's UI, then check Alertmanager's view
   curl https://grafana.example.com/api/alertmanager/grafana/api/v2/alerts \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' | jq '.[] | {alertname: .labels.alertname, receiver: .receivers}'
   

   The expected receiver should appear. If the wrong receiver appears, re-check the policy's matchers.

Routing alerts to IRM / on-call

1. In IRM, create an Integration of type "Grafana Alerting webhook" → copy the integration URL
2. Add a webhook contact point in Grafana Alerting pointing at that URL (full YAML in references/irm.md § Routing)
3. Add a notification policy matcher routing the right severity to the new contact point
4. Verify: trigger a test alert; it should appear in IRM within ~30s. Full debug procedure in references/irm.md § Verifying the IRM integration.

Defining an SLO

1. Create the SLO via UI or API → Grafana auto-generates recording rules, dashboards, and burn-rate alerts (the generated YAML is in references/slo.md)
2. Use multi-window burn-rate alerts, not single-window — see references/slo.md § Multi-window burn-rate alerts for why single-window fires on noise
3. Verify with the 4-step pattern in references/slo.md § Validating SLO config

Contact Points (YAML provisioning)

# provisioning/alerting/contact_points.yaml
apiVersion: 1
contactPoints:
  - orgId: 1
    name: pagerduty-critical
    receivers:
      - uid: pd-receiver
        type: pagerduty
        settings:
          integrationKey: YOUR_PAGERDUTY_KEY
          severity: critical

  - orgId: 1
    name: slack-alerts
    receivers:
      - uid: slack-receiver
        type: slack
        settings:
          url: https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR/WEBHOOK/URL
          channel: '#alerts'

For email, webhook, Teams, Telegram, OnCall, and other receiver types, see references/alerting.md § Contact point receiver types.

Notification policies

Hierarchical routing tree with label matchers:

# provisioning/alerting/notification_policies.yaml
apiVersion: 1
policies:
  - orgId: 1
    receiver: default-receiver
    group_by: ['alertname', 'cluster', 'service']
    group_wait: 30s
    group_interval: 5m
    repeat_interval: 12h
    routes:
      # Critical alerts → PagerDuty
      - receiver: pagerduty-critical
        matchers:
          - severity = critical
        group_wait: 10s
        repeat_interval: 4h

      # Platform team → Slack, but page on critical
      - receiver: slack-alerts
        matchers:
          - team = platform
        routes:
          - receiver: pagerduty-critical
            matchers:
              - severity = critical

      # Everything else → email
      - receiver: email-alerts
        matchers:
          - severity =~ "warning|info"

Silences

Suppress notifications for matching alerts without stopping evaluation:

curl -X POST https://grafana.example.com/api/alertmanager/grafana/api/v2/silences \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "matchers": [
      {"name": "alertname", "value": "HighErrorRate", "isRegex": false},
      {"name": "env", "value": "staging", "isRegex": false}
    ],
    "startsAt": "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "endsAt": "2024-01-01T02:00:00Z",
    "comment": "Maintenance window",
    "createdBy": "admin"
  }'

# Verify it was created
curl https://grafana.example.com/api/alertmanager/grafana/api/v2/silences \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' | jq '.[] | select(.status.state == "active")'

Alert rule states

State	Description
Normal	Condition not met
Pending	Condition met, waiting for for duration
Firing	Condition met for full for duration
NoData	Query returned no data
Error	Query/evaluation error
Recovering	Was firing, condition no longer met

Provisioning directory layout

provisioning/alerting/
├── alert_rules.yaml          # Alert and recording rules
├── contact_points.yaml       # Notification destinations
├── notification_policies.yaml  # Routing tree
├── templates.yaml            # Message templates
└── mute_timings.yaml         # Recurring mute windows

API provisioning (keeps UI editable)

Add X-Disable-Provenance: true to keep resources editable in the UI after API provisioning:

curl -X PUT https://grafana.example.com/api/v1/provisioning/policies \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  -H 'X-Disable-Provenance: true' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d @policy.json

curl -X POST https://grafana.example.com/api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  -H 'X-Disable-Provenance: true' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d @rule.json

References

• references/alerting.md — full alert rule YAML (Grafana-managed / Prometheus / Loki) + notification templates
• references/slo.md — generated SLO recording rules + multi-window burn-rate alert pattern + validation steps
• references/irm.md — IRM capabilities, integration sources, Alerting → IRM routing + verification + common failure modes