Alerts Overview
Understand how FreshGuard alerts work, from detection to resolution.
When a monitoring rule detects a problem, FreshGuard creates an alert and dispatches notifications to your configured alert destinations.
Alert Lifecycle
An alert moves through these states:
- Open — The check has failed. The alert is created and notifications are sent to your configured destinations (if any).
- Acknowledged — A team member has seen the alert and is working on it. All bound destinations receive an acknowledgement notification so the rest of the team knows it has been picked up.
- Snoozed — The alert is temporarily silenced until a specified time. Useful for known maintenance windows.
- Resolved — The check passes again. The alert is automatically resolved and a recovery notification is sent.
Info
Alerts are always created when a rule detects a problem, even if no notification destinations are configured. This means you can always see what’s happening from the Alerts page.
Severity Levels
Alerts include a severity level based on the highest severity configured across the rule’s notification bindings:
- Low — Informational. Something to keep an eye on.
- Medium — Default. The check has failed and warrants attention.
- High — Important. The issue should be addressed soon.
- Critical — Urgent. Immediate action is needed.
Cooldown
To avoid notification fatigue, FreshGuard enforces a cooldown period after sending an alert. During cooldown, the alert remains active but no additional notifications are sent for the same issue.
The cooldown resets when:
- The alert resolves (data starts flowing again).
- The alert escalates to a higher severity.
Acknowledgement Notifications
When you acknowledge an alert, FreshGuard sends an acknowledgement notification to all active destinations bound to that rule. The message includes:
- Who acknowledged the alert and when.
- The rule name and affected table.
- Any notes you added.
- A direct link to the alert detail page.
This keeps the whole team informed without requiring anyone to log in and check manually.
Tip
You can add a short note when acknowledging — for example, “Investigating upstream pipeline delay”. This note appears in the notification so teammates have immediate context.
Recovery Notifications
When an alert resolves — the underlying check starts passing again — FreshGuard sends a recovery notification to the same destinations that received the original alert. This gives your team confidence that no manual verification is needed.
Tip
Recovery notifications are sent automatically. You don’t need to manually acknowledge or close alerts.
Alert History
All alerts are recorded and accessible from the Alerts page in the dashboard. You can filter alerts by:
- Status — Open, acknowledged, snoozed, resolved, or all.
- Severity — Low, medium, high, or critical.
- Rule — Filter by specific rule.
- Time range — View alerts from a specific period.
Each alert shows a notification summary indicating how many notifications were sent, so you can tell at a glance whether destinations are configured and working.
Every email and Slack notification includes a “View in FreshGuard” link that opens the alert detail page directly — no need to hunt through the dashboard to find the right alert.
Alert history is retained based on your plan:
| Plan | History Retention |
|---|---|
| Free | 7 days |
| Starter | 30 days |
| Professional | 90 days |
| Enterprise | 1 year |
Manual Checks
You can trigger a check manually from the Rules page by clicking the Run Check button on any rule. If the manual check fails, it creates an alert through the same pipeline as scheduled checks.