Signals
What are Signals
Signals are incoming alerts from your monitoring systems. Every alert that arrives at OpsWorker via webhook is recorded as a signal, regardless of whether it triggers an investigation.
Signals provide a unified view of all alert activity across your connected monitoring sources.
Types of Signals
OpsWorker accepts signals from the following sources:
| Source | Format | Integration |
|---|---|---|
| Prometheus AlertManager | AlertManager webhook payload | Webhook receiver in alertmanager.yml |
| Grafana Alerting | Grafana webhook payload | Contact Point (Webhook type) |
| Datadog | Datadog webhook payload | Webhook integration + monitor notification |
| Amazon CloudWatch | CloudWatch alarm payload | SNS → webhook |
Each signal is normalized into a common format regardless of its source. This means OpsWorker handles the differences between Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog alert formats automatically.
Signal Contents
Every signal includes:
- Alert name — The name of the alert that fired
- Severity — Critical, warning, info (mapped from source-specific severity)
- Labels — Key-value pairs from the alert (namespace, pod, service, etc.)
- Annotations — Additional context (description, summary, runbook URL)
- Source — Which monitoring system sent the alert
- Timestamp — When the alert fired
Processing
When a signal arrives:
- Received — OpsWorker captures the raw webhook payload
- Normalized — Alert is converted to OpsWorker's common format
- Evaluated — Alert rules are checked to determine if this signal should trigger an investigation
- Stored — The signal is recorded in the system for visibility and trend analysis
Signals that match an alert rule with auto-investigation enabled will automatically start an investigation. Signals that don't match any rule are still recorded and visible in the portal.
Signal Visibility
All signals — whether or not they triggered an investigation — are visible in the OpsWorker portal:
- Alert Timeline — Chronological view of all signals with filtering by severity, namespace, and cluster
- Alert Trends — Volume patterns over time
- Daily Digest — Automated daily summary comparing signal volumes day-over-day
This visibility helps you understand your alert landscape and identify opportunities to tune your monitoring thresholds.
Next Steps
- Alert Rules — Control which signals trigger investigations
- Alert Visibility — Explore signal data in the portal
- Daily Digest — Automated daily summaries