Your First Alert

By the end of this guide, you’ll have an alert channel connected and a notification policy routing incidents to it.

Prerequisites

DevHelm CLI installed or an API token for REST calls
An API token set as DEVHELM_API_TOKEN — see Authentication
At least one monitor running — see First HTTP monitor
A Slack webhook URL, email address, or other alert destination

Set up alerting in three steps

Create an alert channel

An alert channel is a configured destination. Start with whichever integration you use:

devhelm alert-channels create \
  --name "Engineering Slack" \
  --type slack \
  --webhook-url "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T.../B.../xxx"

devhelm alert-channels create \
  --name "On-Call Email" \
  --type email \
  --config '{"recipients": ["oncall@example.com"]}'

devhelm alert-channels create \
  --name "Custom Webhook" \
  --type webhook \
  --webhook-url "https://example.com/webhooks/devhelm"

Save the channel ID from the output — you’ll need it in the next step.

Test the channel

Verify the channel is configured correctly before using it:

devhelm alert-channels test <channel-id>

You should see a test notification arrive at your destination.

Create a notification policy

A notification policy connects incidents to channels. Start with a catch-all policy that routes all incidents:

devhelm notification-policies create \
  --name "All incidents" \
  --channel-ids "<channel-id>"

curl -X POST https://api.devhelm.io/api/v1/notification-policies \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DEVHELM_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "All incidents",
    "matchRules": [],
    "escalation": {
      "steps": [{
        "delayMinutes": 0,
        "channelIds": ["<channel-id>"]
      }],
      "onResolve": "notify_all_steps"
    }
  }'

An empty matchRules array is a catch-all — it matches every incident.

Verify end-to-end

The easiest way to test the full pipeline is to create a monitor that will fail:

devhelm monitors create \
  --name "Alert Test (delete me)" \
  --type HTTP \
  --url https://httpstat.us/500 \
  --frequency 30 \
  --regions us-east

Wait for the default incident policy to trigger (2 consecutive failures ≈ 1 minute), then check that your notification arrives. Delete the test monitor when done:

devhelm monitors delete <test-monitor-id>

What happens when an incident fires

A monitor’s checks fail and match its trigger rules
The confirmation policy validates failures across regions
The incident moves to CONFIRMED status
DevHelm evaluates all enabled notification policies — yours matches
The escalation chain executes — your channel receives a notification
When the monitor recovers, a resolution notification is sent (based on onResolve)

Next steps

Alerting guide

Build tiered escalation and scoped policies.

Alert channels

All seven channel types and their configuration.

Notification policies

Match rules, priority, and evaluation logic.

Integrations

Detailed setup for Slack, PagerDuty, and more.

Overview

Getting Started

Monitoring Guides

Alerting Guides

Incident Guides

Status Data Guides

Monitoring as Code Guides

Your First Alert

Set up alerting in three steps

Verify end-to-end

What happens when an incident fires

Next steps

Alerting guide

Alert channels

Notification policies

Integrations

​Set up alerting in three steps

​Verify end-to-end

​What happens when an incident fires

​Next steps

Alerting guide

Alert channels

Notification policies

Integrations

Set up alerting in three steps

Verify end-to-end

What happens when an incident fires

Next steps