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Notification template examples

Notification templates allows you to change the default notification messages.

You can modify the content and format of notification messages. For example, you can customize the content to show only specific information or adjust the format to suit a particular contact point, such as Slack or Email.

Note

Avoid adding extra information about alert instances in notification templates, as this information is only be visible in the notification message.

Instead, you should use annotations or labels to add information directly to the alert, ensuring it’s also visible in the alert state and alert history within Grafana. You can then print the new alert annotation or label in notification templates.

This page provides various examples illustrating how to template common notification messages. For more details about notification templates, refer to:

Basic examples

Notification templates can access the notification data using the dot (.). The following examples demonstrate some basic uses of the template language.

For instance, to check if there are common labels (.CommonLabels) for all alerts in the notification, use if:

Go 
{{ define "custom_message" -}}
{{ if .CommonLabels }}
Alerts have common labels
{{ else }}
There are no common labels
{{ end }}
{{ end }}

To iterate on the alerts in the notification and print a specific label, use range and index:

Go 
{{ define "custom_message" -}}
{{ range .Alerts }}
The name of the alert is {{ index .Labels "alertname" }}
{{ end }}
{{ end }}

Alternatively, you can use the . notation to print the value of the key.

Go 
{{ define "custom_message" -}}
{{ range .Alerts }}
The name of the alert is {{ .Labels.alertname }}
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
template_output 
The name of the alert is InstanceDown

The name of the alert is CpuOverload

Here’s an example that displays the summary and description annotations for each alert in the notification.

Go 
{{ define "custom.alerts" -}}
{{ len .Alerts }} alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts -}}
  {{ template "alert.summary_and_description" . -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ define "alert.summary_and_description" }}
  Summary: {{.Annotations.summary}}
  Status: {{ .Status }}
  Description: {{.Annotations.description}}
{{ end -}}

In this example:

  • A template (alert.summary_and_description) is defined to print the summary, status, and description of one alert.
  • The main template custom.alerts iterates the list of alerts (.Alerts) in notification data, executing the alert.summary_and_description template to print the details of each alert.

The notification message would look like this:

template_output 
2 alert(s)

  Summary: The database server db1 has exceeded 75% of available disk space.
  Status: firing
  Description: This alert fires when a database server is at risk of running out of disk space. You should take measures to increase the maximum available disk space as soon as possible to avoid possible corruption.

  Summary: The web server web1 has been responding to 5% of HTTP requests with 5xx errors for the last 5 minutes.
  Status: resolved
  Description: This alert fires when a web server responds with more 5xx errors than is expected. This could be an issue with the web server or a backend service.

The following example is similar to the previous one, but it separates firing and resolved alerts.

Go 
{{ define "custom.firing_and_resolved_alerts" -}}
{{ len .Alerts.Resolved }} resolved alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Resolved -}}
  {{ template "alert.summary_and_description" . -}}
{{ end }}
{{ len .Alerts.Firing }} firing alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Firing -}}
  {{ template "alert.summary_and_description" . -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ define "alert.summary_and_description" }}
  Summary: {{.Annotations.summary}}
  Status: {{ .Status }}
  Description: {{.Annotations.description}}
{{ end -}}

Instead of .Alerts, the template accesses .Alerts.Firing and .Alerts.Resolved separately to print details for each alert.

The output might now look like this:

template_output 
1 resolved alert(s)

  Summary: The database server db1 has exceeded 75% of available disk space.
  Status: resolved
  Description: This alert fires when a database server is at risk of running out of disk space. You should take measures to increase the maximum available disk space as soon as possible to avoid possible corruption.

1 firing alert(s)

  Summary: The web server web1 has been responding to 5% of HTTP requests with 5xx errors for the last 5 minutes.
  Status: firing
  Description: This alert fires when a web server responds with more 5xx errors than is expected. This could be an issue with the web server or a backend service.

This example displays only the labels and annotations that are common to all alerts in the notification.

Go 
{{ define "custom.common_labels_and_annotations" -}}
{{ len .Alerts.Resolved }} resolved alert(s)
{{ len .Alerts.Firing }} firing alert(s)
Common labels: {{ len .CommonLabels.SortedPairs }}
{{ range .CommonLabels.SortedPairs -}}
- {{ .Name }} = {{ .Value }}
{{ end }}
Common annotations: {{ len .CommonAnnotations.SortedPairs }}
{{ range .CommonAnnotations.SortedPairs }}
- {{ .Name }} = {{ .Value }}
{{ end }}
{{ end -}}

Note that .CommonAnnotations and .CommonLabels are part of notification data.

template_output 
1 resolved alert(s)
1 firing alert(s)
Common labels: 2
- grafana_folder = server_alerts
- team = server_admin

Common annotations: 0

This example displays all labels and annotations for each alert in the notification.

Go 
{{ define "custom.alert_labels_and_annotations" -}}
{{ len .Alerts.Resolved }} resolved alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Resolved -}}
  {{ template "alert.labels_and_annotations" . -}}
{{ end }}
{{ len .Alerts.Firing }} firing alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Firing -}}
  {{ template "alert.labels_and_annotations" . -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ define "alert.labels_and_annotations" }}
Alert labels: {{ len .Labels.SortedPairs }}
{{ range .Labels.SortedPairs -}}
- {{ .Name }} = {{ .Value }}
{{ end -}}
Alert annotations: {{ len .Annotations.SortedPairs }}
{{ range .Annotations.SortedPairs -}}
- {{ .Name }} = {{ .Value }}
{{ end -}}
{{ end -}}

In this example:

  • The custom.alert_labels_and_annotations template iterates over the list of resolved and firing alerts, similar to previous examples. It then executes alert.labels_and_annotations for each alert.
  • The alert.labels_and_annotations template prints all the alert labels and annotations by accessing .Labels.SortedPairs and .Annotations.SortedPairs.
template_output 
1 resolved alert(s)

Alert labels: 4
- alertname = db_server_disk_space
- grafana_folder = server_alerts
- server = db1
- team = server_admin

Alert annotations: 2
- summary = The database server db1 has exceeded 75% of available disk space.
- description = This alert fires when a database server is at risk of running out of disk space. You should take measures to increase the maximum available disk space as soon as possible to avoid possible corruption.

1 firing alert(s)

Alert labels: 4
- alertname = web_server_http_errors
- grafana_folder = server_alerts
- server = web1
- team = server_admin

Alert annotations: 2
- summary = The web server web1 has been responding to 5% of HTTP requests with 5xx errors for the last 5 minutes.
- description = This alert fires when a web server responds with more 5xx errors than is expected. This could be an issue with the web server or a backend service.

Note that the following example works only for Grafana-managed alerts. It displays some alert data such as DashboardURL, PanelURL, and SilenceURL, which are exclusive to Grafana-managed alerts.

Go 
{{ define "custom.alert_additional_details" -}}
{{ len .Alerts.Resolved }} resolved alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Resolved -}}
  {{ template "alert.additional_details" . -}}
{{ end }}
{{ len .Alerts.Firing }} firing alert(s)
{{ range .Alerts.Firing -}}
  {{ template "alert.additional_details" . -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ end -}}
{{ define "alert.additional_details" }}
- Dashboard: {{ .DashboardURL }}
- Panel: {{ .PanelURL }}
- AlertGenerator: {{ .GeneratorURL }}
- Silence: {{ .SilenceURL }}
- RunbookURL: {{ .Annotations.runbook_url}}
{{ end -}}

The output of this template looks like this:

template_output 
1 resolved alert(s)

- Dashboard: https://example.com/d/
- Panel: https://example.com/d/
- AlertGenerator: ?orgId=1
- Silence: https://example.com/alerting/silence/new
- RunbookURL: https://example.com/on-call/db_server_disk_space

1 firing alert(s)

- Dashboard: https://example.com/d/
- Panel: https://example.com/d/
- AlertGenerator: ?orgId=1
- Silence: https://example.com/alerting/silence/new
- RunbookURL: https://example.com/on-call/web_server_http_errors

A title or subject provides a one-line summary of the notification content.

Here’s a basic example that displays the number of firing and resolved alerts in the notification.

Go 
{{ define "custom_title" -}}
{{ if gt (.Alerts.Firing | len) 0 }}🚨 {{ .Alerts.Firing | len }} firing alerts. {{ end }}{{ if gt (.Alerts.Resolved | len) 0 }}✅ {{ .Alerts.Resolved | len }} resolved alerts.{{ end }}
{{ end -}}
template_output 
🚨 1 firing alerts. ✅ 1 resolved alerts.

The next example is a copy of the default title/subject template used in Grafana.

Go 
{{ define "copy_of_default_title" -}}
[{{ .Status | toUpper }}{{ if eq .Status "firing" }}:{{ .Alerts.Firing | len }}{{ if gt (.Alerts.Resolved | len) 0 }}, RESOLVED:{{ .Alerts.Resolved | len }}{{ end }}{{ end }}] {{ .GroupLabels.SortedPairs.Values | join " " }} {{ if gt (len .CommonLabels) (len .GroupLabels) }}({{ with .CommonLabels.Remove .GroupLabels.Names }}{{ .Values | join " " }}{{ end }}){{ end }}
{{ end }}

This is a more advanced example:

  • Prints the number of firing and resolved alerts in the notification.
  • Outputs .GroupLabels, the labels used to group multiple alerts in one notification.
  • Prints CommonLabels, excluding labels in .GroupLabels.
template_output 
[FIRING:1, RESOLVED:1] api warning (sql_db)