Notifications are a key component of monitors that keep your team informed of issues and support troubleshooting. When creating your monitor, add to the Say what’s happening and Notify your team sections.
Use this section to set the notifications sent to your team.
Add a unique title to your monitor (required). For multi-alert monitors, some tags identifying your triggering scope are automatically inserted. Additionally, you can use tag variables.
The message field allows standard Markdown formatting and variables. Use conditional variables to modulate the notification text sent to different contacts with @notifications.
A common use-case for the monitor message is to include a step-by-step way to resolve the problem, for example:
Steps to free up disk space:
1. Remove unused packages
2. Clear APT cache
3. Uninstall unnecessary applications
4. Remove duplicate files
Add tags to your monitor (optional). Monitor tags are different than metric tags. They are used in the UI to group and search for monitors.
Enable monitor renotification (optional) to remind your team that a problem is not solved.
If renotification is enabled, you are given the option to include an escalation message that is sent if the monitor remains in the alert or no data state for the specified time.
The escalation message can be added in the following ways:
{{#is_renotify}} block in the original notification message (recommended).escalation_message attribute in the API.If you use the {{#is_renotify}} block, keep in mind that the original notification message is also included in the renotification, so:
{{#is_renotify}} block and don’t repeat the original message details.Learn how to configure your monitors for those use cases in the example section.
Add a priority (optional) associated with your monitors. Values range from P1 through P5, with P1 being the highest priority and the P5 being the lowest.
Use this section to send notifications to your team through email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc. You can search for team members and connected integrations with the drop-down box. When an @notification is added to this section, the notification is automatically added to the message field.
Note: An @notification must have a space between it and the last line character, for example:
Disk space is low @ops-team@company.com
@notifications can be sent to:
@<DD_USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS>. Note: An email address associated with a pending Datadog user invitation is considered inactive and does not receive notifications.@<EMAIL>.Notify your team through connected integrations by using the format @<INTEGRATION_NAME>-<VALUES>. Below is a list of prefixes and example links:
| Integration | Prefix | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Jira | @jira | Examples |
| PagerDuty | @pagerduty | Examples |
| Slack | @slack | Examples |
| Webhooks | @webhook | Examples |
See the list of integrations that can be used to notify your team.
Note: Handles that include parentheses ((, )) are not supported. When a handle with parentheses is used, the handle is not be parsed and no alert is created.
An event is created anytime a monitor is created, modified, silenced, or deleted. Set the Notify option to notify team members and chat services of these events.
If changes are restricted, only the monitor’s creator or an administrator can change the monitor. Changes include any updates to the monitor definition and muting for any amount of time.
Note: The limitations are applied both in the UI and API.
Use template variables to customize your monitor notifications. The built-in variables are:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
{{value}} | The value that breached the alert for metric based query monitors. |
{{threshold}} | The value of the alert threshold set in the monitor’s alert conditions. |
{{warn_threshold}} | The value of the warning threshold set in the monitor’s alert conditions. |
{{ok_threshold}} | The value that recovered the monitor. |
{{comparator}} | The relational value set in the monitor’s alert conditions. |
{{last_triggered_at}} | The UTC date and time when the monitor last triggered. |
{{last_triggered_at_epoch}} | The UTC date and time when the monitor last triggered in epoch milliseconds. |
Template variables that return numerical values support operations and functions, which allow you to perform mathematical operations or formatting changes to the value. For full details, see Template Variable Evaluation.
Tag variables can be used in multi-alert monitors based on the tags selected in the multi-alert group box. This works for any tag following the key:value syntax.
For example, if your monitor triggers an alert for each host, then the tag variables {{host.name}} and {{host.ip}} are available. To see a list of tag variables based on your tag selection, click Use message template variables in the Say what’s happening section.
Notes:
{{{event.text}}}.If your tag’s key has a period in it, include brackets around the full key when using a tag variable.
For example, if your tag is dot.key.test:five and your monitor is grouped by dot.key.test, use:
{{[dot.key.test].name}}
Log monitors can use facets as variables if the monitor is grouped by the facets.
For example, if your log monitor is grouped by the facet, the variable is:
{{ facet.name }}
Example: To include the information in a multi alert log monitor group by @machine_id:
This alert was triggered on {{ @machine_id.name }}
If your facet has periods, use brackets around the facet, for example:
{{ [@network.client.ip].name }}
Composite monitors can access the value associated with the sub-monitors at the time the alert triggers.
For example, if your composite monitor has sub-monitor a, you can include the value of a with:
{{ a.value }}
Conditional variables use if-else logic to display a different message depending on the state of the monitor and the details of how it was triggered. These variables can be used within the subject or body of the notification message.
The following conditional variables are available:
| Conditional Variable | The text is displayed if |
|---|---|
{{#is_alert}} | The monitor alerts |
{{^is_alert}} | The monitor does not alert |
{{#is_match}} | The context matches the provided substring |
{{^is_match}} | The context does not match the provided substring |
{{#is_exact_match}} | The context exactly matches the provided string |
{{^is_exact_match}} | The context does not exactly match the provided string |
{{#is_no_data}} | The monitor is triggered for missing data |
{{^is_no_data}} | The monitor is not triggered for missing data |
{{#is_warning}} | The monitor warns |
{{^is_warning}} | The monitor does not warn |
{{#is_recovery}} | The monitor recovers from ALERT, WARNING, or NO DATA |
{{^is_recovery}} | The monitor does not recover from ALERT, WARNING, or NO DATA |
{{#is_warning_recovery}} | The monitor recovers from WARNING to OK |
{{^is_warning_recovery}} | The monitor does not recover from WARNING to OK |
{{#is_alert_recovery}} | The monitor recovers from ALERT to OK |
{{^is_alert_recovery}} | The monitor does not recover from an ALERT to OK |
{{#is_alert_to_warning}} | The monitor transitions from ALERT to WARNING |
{{^is_alert_to_warning}} | The monitor does not transition from ALERT to WARNING |
{{#is_no_data_recovery}} | The monitor recovers from NO DATA |
{{^is_no_data_recovery}} | The monitor does not recover from NO DATA |
{{#is_priority 'value'}} | The monitor has priority value. Value ranges from P1 to P5 |
{{#is_unknown}} | The monitor is in the unknown state |
{{^is_unknown}} | The monitor is not in the unknown state |
{{#is_renotify}} | The monitor is renotifying |
{{^is_renotify}} | The monitor is not renotifying. |
Conditional variable must have an opening and closing pair with the text and @-notifications in-between.
To send a notification message when a monitor alerts, use the format:
{{#is_alert}}
<ALERT_MESSAGE_TEXT> <@-NOTIFICATION>
{{/is_alert}}
To send a notification message when a monitor warns, use the format:
{{#is_warning}}
<WARNING_MESSAGE_TEXT> <@-NOTIFICATION>
{{/is_warning}}
To send a notification message when a monitor recovers, use the format:
{{#is_recovery}}
<RECOVERY_MESSAGE_TEXT> <@-NOTIFICATION>
{{/is_recovery}}
Search for a substring in a tag variable with the format:
{{#is_match "<TAG_VARIABLE>.name" "<COMPARISON_STRING>"}}
This displays if <COMPARISON_STRING> is included in <TAG_VARIABLE>.
{{/is_match}}
To notify your DB team if a triggering host has the tag role:db_cassandra or role:db_postgres, use the following:
{{#is_match "role.name" "db"}}
This displays if the host triggering the alert contains `db`
in the role name. @db-team@company.com
{{/is_match}}
The is_match condition also supports matching multiple strings:
{{#is_match "role.name" "db" "database"}}
This displays if the host triggering the alert contains `db` or `database`
in the role name. @db-team@company.com
{{/is_match}}
To send a different notification if the tag doesn’t contain db, use the negation of the condition as follows:
{{^#is_match "role.name" "db"}}
This displays if the role tag doesn't contain `db`.
@slack-example
{{/is_match}}
Or use the {{else}} parameter in the first example:
{{#is_match "role.name" "db"}}
This displays if the host triggering the alert contains `db`
in the role name. @db-team@company.com
{{else}}
This displays if the role tag doesn't contain `db`.
@slack-example
{{/is_match}}
Note: To check if a <TAG_VARIABLE> is NOT empty, use an empty string for the <COMPARISON_STRING>.
Search for an exact string in a tag variable with the format:
{{#is_exact_match "<TAG_VARIABLE>.name" "<COMPARISON_STRING>"}}
This displays if <COMPARISON_STRING> is exactly <TAG_VARIABLE>.
{{/is_exact_match}}
To notify your dev team if a triggering host has the name production, use the following:
{{#is_exact_match "host.name" "production"}}
This displays if the host that triggered the alert is exactly
named production. @dev-team@company.com
{{/is_exact_match}}
To send an escalation message to a different destination just for the production environment:
{{#is_renotify}}
{{#is_match "env" "production"}}
This is an escalation message sent to @dev-team@company.com
{{/is_match}}
{{/is_renotify}}
To send a different escalation message that does not contain the original message details, use a combination of {{^is_renotify}} and {{#is_renotify}} blocks:
{{^is_renotify}}
This monitor is alerting and sending a first message @dev-team@company.com
To solve this monitor follow the steps:
1. Go there
2. Do this
{{/is_renotify}}
This part is generic and sent both for the first trigger and the escalation message.
{{#is_renotify}}
This is the escalation message @dev-team@company.com
{{/is_renotify}}
On monitor renotification, users will get the following escalation message:
This part is generic and sent both for the first trigger and the escalation message.
This is the escalation message @dev-team@company.com
Test notifications are supported for the monitor types: host, metric, anomaly, outlier, forecast, logs, rum, apm, integration (check only), process (check only), network (check only), custom check, event, and composite.
After defining your monitor, test the notifications with the Test Notifications button at the bottom right of the monitor page.
From the test notifications pop-up, choose the monitor case to test in. You can only test states that are available in the monitor’s configuration for the thresholds specified in the alerting conditions. Recovery thresholds are an exception, as Datadog sends a recovery notification once the monitor either is no longer in alert, or it has no warn conditions.
Click Run Test to send notifications to the people and services listed in the monitor.
Test notifications produce events that can be searched within the event stream. These notifications indicate who initiated the test in the message body with [TEST] in notification title.
Message variables auto-populate with a randomly selected group based on the scope of your monitor’s definition, for example:
{{#is_alert}}
{{host.name}} <-- will populate
{{/is_alert}}
Use tag variables to enable dynamic URL building that links your team to an appropriate resource. For example, you can provide links to pages within Datadog such as dashboards, the host map, and monitors.
Use the {{host.name}} tag variable to provide a link to a system dashboard:
https://app.datadoghq.com/dash/integration/system_overview?tpl_var_scope=host:{{host.name}}
Use the {{host.name}} tag variable and an <INTEGRATION_NAME> to provide a link to an integration dashboard:
https://app.datadoghq.com/dash/integration/<INTEGRATION_NAME>?tpl_var_scope=host:{{host.name}}
Use a tag variable such as {{service.name}} to provide a link to the host map:
https://app.datadoghq.com/infrastructure/map?filter=service:{{service.name}}
The host map link is customizable with additional parameters. The most common are:
| Parameter | Defined with | Determines |
|---|---|---|
fillby | fillby=avg:<METRIC_NAME> | The fill color of the host hexagons. |
groupby | groupby=<TAG_KEY> | The groups for host hexagons. |
sizeby | sizeby=avg:<METRIC_NAME> | The size of the host hexagons. |
Use the {{host.name}} tag variable to provide a link to all monitors related to a specific host:
https://app.datadoghq.com/monitors/manage?q=scope:host:{{host.name}}
The monitors link is customizable with additional parameters. The most common are:
| Parameter | Example | Displays |
|---|---|---|
status | status:Alert | Monitors in an alert state (additional statuses: WARN, NO DATA, and OK) |
muted | muted: true | Muted monitors (use false for non-muted monitors) |
type | type:log | Log monitors (see other monitor types) |
To include a comment in the monitor message that only displays in the monitor edit screen, use the syntax:
{{!-- this is a comment --}}
If your alert message needs to send double curly braces, such as {{ <TEXT> }}, use {{{{raw}}}} formatting. For example, the following:
{{{{raw}}}}
{{ <TEXT_1> }} {{ <TEXT_2> }}
{{{{/raw}}}}
Outputs:
{{ <TEXT_1> }} {{ <TEXT_2> }}
The ^|# helpers used in conditional variables cannot be used with {{{{raw}}}} formatting and must be removed. For instance, to output raw text with the {{is_match}} conditional variable use the following template:
{{{{is_match "host.name" "<HOST_NAME>"}}}}
{{ .matched }} the host name
{{{{/is_match}}}}
If host.name matches <HOST_NAME>, the template outputs:
{{ .matched }} the host name
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
