Create an alert rule

The following is a basic guide to creating an alert rule. For more detail, refer to the official Grafana documentation here.

Step 1: Access Alerting

• Open Grafana.
• In the left menu > Alerting > Alert rules.

• Click New alert rule and enter the alert rule name.

The name is:

• Displayed in the alert rule list.
• Used as the value of the alertname label for all alert instances generated by this rule.

Step 2: Define the query and condition

Define the query to fetch the data to monitor and the condition that must be met before the alert rule fires.

• Select a data source (for example: Prometheus).
• Enter the metric query. This query is the input for the alert condition.

Example: cpu_usage_percent > 80

Then define the condition.

Step 3: Configure alert evaluation behavior

Set the evaluation frequency and how the alert transitions between states.

• Select a folder or click + New folder to choose where to save the alert rule.
• Select an evaluation group or create a new one. Rules in the same group are evaluated simultaneously on the same interval.
• If creating a new group, specify the interval.
• Enter the pending period: the time the alert must violate the condition before firing.

Step 4: Add annotations

Use annotations to provide additional context in the alert message.

Optional annotation fields:

• Summary: Brief description of the incident.
• Description: Description of the alert rule.
• Runbook URL: Link to the handling runbook.
• Custom annotation: Additional information.
• Link dashboard & panel: Link to related dashboard or panel.

Example:

summary = High CPU usage
description = CPU usage is above 80% for more than 5 minutes

Step 5: Labels and notifications

Step 6: Save the alert rule

• Click Save in the top right corner.

The alert rule is created successfully.

To verify the alert after creation:

• Go to Alerting > Alert rules.
• Check the status: Normal / Pending / Firing.