Silencing Alerts

Temporarily silence alerts during planned maintenance, deployments, or known issues. Prevent alert fatigue while maintaining visibility.

What is Alert Silencing?

Alert silencing prevents notifications from being sent during specified time windows:

• Monitors continue running: Checks still execute
• Results are recorded: Data still collected
• Incidents created: But no alerts sent
• Temporary: Auto-expires after duration

When to Silence Alerts

1. Scheduled Maintenance

Scenario: Database upgrade
Duration: 2 hours (02:00-04:00 UTC)
Silence: Database monitor, API monitor
Reason: "Database upgrade to v15"

2. Known Issues

Scenario: Third-party API degradation
Duration: Until resolved (~4 hours)
Silence: Payment API monitor
Reason: "Stripe API degradation - monitoring manually"

3. Deployments

Scenario: Rolling deployment
Duration: 30 minutes
Silence: All production monitors
Reason: "v2.5.0 deployment in progress"

4. Testing/Debug

Scenario: Load testing
Duration: 1 hour
Silence: Performance monitors
Reason: "Load testing - expect high latency"

Silencing Methods

Method 1: Via Dashboard

1. Navigate to Monitors
2. Find the monitor to silence
3. Click Actions → Silence Alerts
4. Configure:
   • Duration: 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours, custom
   • Reason: Maintenance, deployment, etc.
5. Click Silence

Method 2: Via API

POST /v1/monitors/:id/silence
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "duration": 3600,  # Seconds (1 hour)
  "reason": "Database maintenance"
}

# Response: 200 OK
{
  "silencedUntil": "2026-02-13T14:00:00Z",
  "reason": "Database maintenance"
}

Method 3: Bulk Silence

Silence multiple monitors at once:

POST /v1/monitors/silence-bulk
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "monitorIds": ["mon_api", "mon_db", "mon_cache"],
  "duration": 7200,  # 2 hours
  "reason": "Planned maintenance window"
}

Silence Duration

Unsilencing Alerts

Auto-Unsilence

Alerts automatically resume after duration expires:

Silenced: 13:00 UTC
Duration: 1 hour
Auto-unsilence: 14:00 UTC

At 14:00:
- Silence expires automatically
- Next monitor failure will trigger alerts
- No manual action needed

Manual Unsilence

Resume alerts early if work finishes ahead of schedule:

# Dashboard
1. Go to Monitors
2. Click silenced monitor (has 🔇 icon)
3. Click "Unsilence Alerts"
4. Confirm

# API
DELETE /v1/monitors/:id/silence

Silence Indicators

Dashboard

• 🔇 icon next to monitor name
• Yellow "Silenced" badge
• Countdown timer: "Silenced for 45 minutes"
• Reason displayed: "Database maintenance"

Status Page

Component: API
Status: Under Maintenance

Scheduled maintenance in progress.
Expected completion: 14:00 UTC

We'll update when work is complete.

Silencing vs Pausing

Silence Schedules

Pro and Enterprise plans support recurring silence schedules:

Schedule: Weekly Database Backups
Frequency: Every Sunday
Time: 02:00-03:00 UTC
Monitors: Database, API (depends on DB)
Reason: "Automated weekly backup"

Auto-silence: Sundays at 02:00
Auto-unsilence: Sundays at 03:00

Best Practices

1. Always Provide Reason

• Good: "Database upgrade to PostgreSQL 15"
• Bad: "Maintenance"

2. Set Realistic Durations

• Overestimate by 30 minutes
• Better to finish early and unsilence
• Don't leave monitors silenced indefinitely

3. Coordinate with Team

• Post in Slack before silencing
• Update status page with maintenance notice
• Notify on-call engineer

4. Monitor During Silence

• Even silenced, check dashboard manually
• Verify maintenance is progressing
• Watch for unexpected failures

5. Unsilence Promptly

• Don't leave monitors silenced after work completes
• Set calendar reminder to unsilence
• Use auto-expire feature

Silence Audit Log

All silence actions are logged:

GET /v1/monitors/:id/silence-history

# Response:
{
  "history": [
    {
      "action": "silenced",
      "timestamp": "2026-02-13T13:00:00Z",
      "duration": 3600,
      "reason": "Database maintenance",
      "user": "john@example.com"
    },
    {
      "action": "unsilenced",
      "timestamp": "2026-02-13T13:45:00Z",
      "reason": "auto-expire",
      "user": "System"
    }
  ]
}

Troubleshooting

Alerts Still Sending During Silence

Possible Causes:

• Silence not applied to correct monitor
• Alerts sent before silence started
• Different alert channel not silenced

Solution:

• Verify silence is active (🔇 icon visible)
• Check silence start time
• Ensure all relevant monitors silenced

Cannot Unsilence

Solution:

• Check permissions (admin/member only)
• Wait for auto-expire (max 24h)
• Contact team admin

Next Steps

• Alert Rules: Configure alert conditions
• Alert Channels: Setup notification channels
• Monitors: Create and manage monitors
• Best Practices: Avoid alert fatigue