Alert
GlossaryWritten by Burak YReviewed by Burak YLast reviewed 3 September 2026
A signal generated when a system condition matches a configured rule. Not every alert should page a human. Depending on whether a decision is needed immediately, an alert can be delivered as an interruptive page, a ticket for the next working day, a dashboard signal, or a log entry that nobody is asked to read.
In practice
A disk reaching 70% capacity is a real alert, but it rarely justifies waking someone. Routed to a ticket, it gets fixed on Tuesday; routed to a page, it trains the team to ignore pages.