Alert channels and alert timing

Choose a channel#

Watchfox supports email, Slack, webhook, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and Google Chat channels.

• Email is the simplest individual-recipient setup. One channel represents one email recipient.
• Team chat is useful for shared operational visibility.
• Webhooks are suitable for custom automation and integrations.
• Use channels the responding team already watches; adding unused channels does not improve incident response.

Add a channel#

1. Open Alerts.
2. Add the selected channel and its target or credentials.
3. Save it.
4. Verify that Watchfox shows the channel as healthy after a successful test.

Never paste secrets into support tickets, screenshots, or public status content.

Test an alert channel#

1. Open Send test alert on the Alerts page.
2. Select a monitor in the current project.
3. Send the test.
4. Confirm the Watchfox success result.
5. Confirm the provider or recipient received the test.

A test alert checks delivery without creating a real outage or incident.

First alert delay#

First alert delay applies to the first Down alert for Uptime and Keyword monitoring. Use 0 when immediate notification is required. Use a short delay when transient failures are common and a brief wait is operationally acceptable.

Repeat reminders#

Repeat reminders are sent while the same issue remains active. Available intervals include 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, and 24 hours. Keep them Off when another incident workflow already handles escalation.

Non-critical email automation is subject to shared plan-aware fair-use budgets. Quota suppression is a Watchfox fair-use outcome, not a Postmark bounce, and should not mark the channel unhealthy.

Recovery alerts#

Enable recovery alerts when the team should know that an alertable issue returned to normal. Recovery is sent after a healthy confirmation following the active failure path.

Maintenance mute#

Use maintenance windows for expected downtime. Monitoring evidence may continue, but unnecessary alerts should be muted for the configured scope and time.

Paused and archived behavior#

A paused monitor does not run checks or send alerts. An archived project is read-only and should not continue normal active monitoring workflows.

Test email did not arrive#

Check the Watchfox channel state first, then provider activity, recipient suppressions, spam filtering, and the exact recipient address. See Troubleshooting by symptom.