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Setting Up Alerts

Configure notifications to get alerted immediately when your monitors go down or recover. Never miss a critical incident again.

How Alerts Work

Wakestack automatically monitors your services and sends notifications when issues are detected. Here's what happens when a problem occurs:

Monitor Goes Down

  • Alert threshold is reached (consecutive failures)
  • Incident is automatically created
  • Notifications sent via configured channels
  • Status page updated (if configured)

Monitor Recovers

  • Service responds successfully
  • Incident automatically resolved
  • Recovery notification sent
  • Downtime duration recorded

Quick Start

1

Go to Notification Settings

Navigate to Settings → Notifications in your dashboard.

2

Enable Email Alerts

Toggle on the alerts you want to receive. We recommend enabling both 'Monitor Down' and 'Monitor Recovery' alerts.

Monitor Down: Get notified when a service fails

Monitor Recovery: Know when service is restored

Incident Updates: Changes to incident status

Weekly Reports: Summary of uptime statistics

3

Choose Alert Frequency

Select how often you want to receive alerts - instant, hourly digest, or daily digest.

InstantHourlyDaily
4

Test Your Configuration

Use the 'Send Test Email' button to verify your notifications are working.

You're All Set!

You'll now receive notifications when your monitors have issues. Click Save Preferences to confirm your settings.

Notification Channels

Email Notifications
Receive alerts directly to your inbox

Email notifications are sent to your account email address. Configure which types of alerts you want to receive:

Alert TypeDescriptionDefault
Monitor DownWhen a monitor fails after hitting thresholdEnabled
Monitor RecoveryWhen a monitor returns to operationalEnabled
Incident UpdatesStatus changes on incidentsEnabled
Weekly ReportWeekly uptime summaryDisabled
Alert Threshold
Configure when alerts are triggered based on consecutive failures

The alert threshold determines how many consecutive failures must occur before an alert is sent. This helps prevent false alarms from temporary network issues.

1

Immediate

Alert on first failure

3

Recommended

Balanced approach

5

Conservative

Fewer false alarms

Tip: The alert threshold is configured per monitor when you create or edit a monitor. A threshold of 3 with a 1-minute check interval means you'll be alerted after 3 minutes of downtime.

API Reference

Update Notification Preferences
Programmatically manage notification settings via the API

Get Current Preferences

GET /api/settings/notifications

Update Preferences

curl -X PUT https://wakestack.co.uk/api/settings/notifications \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "preferences": {
      "emailAlerts": true,
      "monitorDown": true,
      "monitorRecovery": true,
      "incidentUpdates": true,
      "weeklyReport": false,
      "digestFrequency": "instant"
    }
  }'

Digest Frequency Options

ValueDescription
instantSend alerts immediately when triggered
hourlyBatch alerts into hourly digest emails
dailyReceive a single daily summary email
Best Practices
Tips for effective alerting without alert fatigue

Do

  • Set appropriate alert thresholds per service criticality
  • Enable recovery notifications to know when issues are resolved
  • Use instant alerts for critical services
  • Test your notification setup regularly
  • Document your on-call procedures

Avoid

  • Setting thresholds too low (false alarms)
  • Using daily digest for critical services
  • Alerting on every internal service
  • Having too many notification channels
  • Ignoring or snoozing repeated alerts

Troubleshooting

Need help? Check out our documentation or contact support.