How do I configure notification rules?
Define when notifications fire - globally for all monitors or targeted to specific ones.
Notification rules control when alerts fire and which channels receive them. Rules come in two scopes: global rules that apply broadly, and specific rules that target an individual monitor or service.
Two Rule Scopes
Global Rules
A global rule applies to all monitors (or all services) that do not have their own specific rule. Think of it as a default: any monitor without a dedicated rule inherits the global rule’s behavior.
Most teams start with a single global rule: send an email when any monitor goes down, and another email when it recovers. This covers everything without needing to configure each monitor individually.
Specific Rules
A specific rule targets a single monitor or service. When a specific rule exists for a monitor, it overrides the global rule for that monitor - the global rule does not fire.
Use specific rules when you need different behavior for a particular monitor. For example:
- A critical payment API might need PagerDuty and email, while most other monitors only need email.
- A low-priority background job monitor might only alert on “down” but not “degraded”.
- A staging environment monitor might route to a separate channel so it doesn’t wake anyone up.
Two Rule Types
Rules are categorized by what they cover:
- Monitor rules - govern alerts from your HTTP, TCP, DNS, and ping monitors
- Service rules - govern alerts from third-party service subscriptions (AWS, Stripe, etc.)
Both types support global and specific scopes.
Trigger Events
Each rule can be configured to fire on any combination of these events:
| Event | When it fires |
|---|---|
| Down | A monitor transitions from Up or Degraded to Down |
| Degraded | A monitor transitions to Degraded (elevated response times or partial failures) |
| Recovery | A monitor transitions from Down or Degraded back to Up |
You can enable or disable each event independently within a rule. For example, you might enable Down and Recovery but leave Degraded disabled if you find degraded alerts too noisy for certain monitors.
Assigning Channels to Rules
Each rule has one or more channels assigned to it. When the rule’s trigger conditions are met, UpCanary sends a notification to every channel assigned to that rule.
To assign a channel to a rule, the channel must already exist. Create channels first in Notifications > Channels, then assign them when creating or editing a rule. See Notification Channels.
Conflict Indicators
When a monitor has a specific rule, the global rule list shows a conflict indicator next to that monitor’s row - a visual reminder that the global rule is not active for it. This helps you audit your notification coverage and avoid the assumption that global rules cover everything.
If you delete a specific rule for a monitor, the monitor falls back to the global rule automatically.
Creating a Rule
- Go to Notifications > Rules in the sidebar.
- Click Add Rule.
- Choose the scope: Global or Specific (and if specific, select the monitor or service).
- Choose the rule type: Monitor or Service.
- Select the trigger events: Down, Degraded, Recovery.
- Assign one or more channels.
- Click Save.
The rule is active immediately.