Axiom Alerting

You manage alerting in Axiom end-to-end: notifiers for routing and monitors for detection.

API Overview

Base URL: https://api.axiom.co/v2/ with Bearer token auth from .axiom.toml (project root or ~/.axiom.toml).

Monitors (/v2/monitors)

Notifiers (/v2/notifiers)

Prerequisites

1. Run scripts/setup
2. Ensure .axiom.toml has a deployment:

[deployments.prod]
url = "https://api.axiom.co"
token = "xaat-your-token"
org_id = "your-org-id"

Scripts

Core:

• scripts/axiom-api <deploy> <method> <path> [body]

Monitor scripts:

• scripts/monitor-list <deployment> [--json]
• scripts/monitor-get <deployment> <id>
• scripts/monitor-history <deployment> <id> <startTime> <endTime>
• scripts/monitor-create <deployment> <json-file>
• scripts/monitor-update <deployment> <id> <json-file>
• scripts/monitor-delete <deployment> <id>

Notifier scripts:

• scripts/notifier-list <deployment> [--json]
• scripts/notifier-get <deployment> <id>
• scripts/notifier-create <deployment> <json-file>
• scripts/notifier-update <deployment> <id> <json-file>
• scripts/notifier-delete <deployment> <id>

Recommended Workflow

1. Create notifier first.
2. Create monitor and set notifierIds.
3. Validate monitor behavior with monitor-history.
4. Iterate monitor thresholds and schedule.

Workflow: End-To-End Alerting

1. Run scripts/setup.
2. List existing notifiers with scripts/notifier-list <deployment> and reuse one if appropriate.
3. If no suitable notifier exists, create one with scripts/notifier-create.
4. Create or update the monitor with notifierIds attached.
5. Validate with scripts/monitor-history <deployment> <id> <startTime> <endTime>.
6. If behavior is noisy or silent, tune threshold, rangeMinutes, intervalMinutes, and N-of-M trigger fields.
7. Re-check history after each change.

Best Practices

• Configure one channel per notifier.
• Use emails (not recipients) for email notifier payloads.
• Prefer triggerAfterNPositiveResults/triggerFromNRuns for noisy signals.
• Use explicit bin() in monitor queries; avoid bin_auto() for alert logic.
• For metrics-backed monitors, prefer mplQuery for definitions; API responses may include both aplQuery and mplQuery.

Monitor Types And Operators

Monitor types:

• Threshold
• MatchEvent
• AnomalyDetection

Operators:

• Above
• Below
• AboveOrEqual
• BelowOrEqual
• AboveOrBelow

Monitor Field Reference

Core fields:

• name: Human-readable monitor name.
• type: Threshold, MatchEvent, or AnomalyDetection.
• aplQuery / mplQuery: Query evaluated by the monitor.
• notifierIds: Array of notifier IDs to notify.
• disabled: Whether monitor is disabled.
• disabledUntil: Optional timestamp for temporary disable/snooze.
• description: Optional monitor description.

Threshold and evaluation fields:

• operator: Threshold comparison operator.
• threshold: Numeric threshold value.
• rangeMinutes: Query evaluation window in minutes.
• intervalMinutes: Evaluation cadence in minutes.
• alertOnNoData: Whether no-data should trigger alerting.
• triggerAfterNPositiveResults: Positive evaluations required before firing.
• triggerFromNRuns: Total evaluation runs considered for N-of-M logic.

Advanced behavior fields:

• resolvable: Whether alerts can resolve automatically.
• notifyByGroup: Notify per group key/value result.
• notifyEveryRun: Notify on every positive evaluation.
• skipResolved: Skip sending resolved notifications.
• secondDelay: Delay (seconds) to tolerate late-arriving data.

Type-specific fields:

• columnName: Field used by some anomaly/value-anomaly monitors.

Minimal Valid Monitor Examples

Threshold:

{
  "name": "High Error Count",
  "type": "Threshold",
  "aplQuery": "['logs'] | where status >= 500 | summarize count()",
  "operator": "Above",
  "threshold": 100,
  "rangeMinutes": 5,
  "intervalMinutes": 5,
  "notifierIds": ["notifier-id"],
  "triggerAfterNPositiveResults": 2,
  "triggerFromNRuns": 3,
  "disabled": false
}

MatchEvent:

{
  "name": "Error Event Match",
  "type": "MatchEvent",
  "aplQuery": "['logs'] | where level == 'error'",
  "rangeMinutes": 5,
  "intervalMinutes": 5,
  "notifierIds": ["notifier-id"],
  "disabled": false
}

AnomalyDetection:

{
  "name": "CPU Anomaly",
  "type": "AnomalyDetection",
  "aplQuery": "['metrics'] | summarize avg(cpu_usage)",
  "columnName": "cpu_usage",
  "operator": "AboveOrBelow",
  "rangeMinutes": 5,
  "intervalMinutes": 5,
  "notifierIds": ["notifier-id"],
  "disabled": false
}

Minimal Valid Notifier Examples

Email:

{
  "name": "Oncall Email",
  "properties": {
    "email": {
      "emails": ["oncall@example.com"]
    }
  }
}

Slack:

{
  "name": "Oncall Slack",
  "properties": {
    "slack": {
      "slackUrl": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T.../B.../XXX"
    }
  }
}

Custom webhook:

{
  "name": "Oncall Custom Webhook",
  "properties": {
    "customWebhook": {
      "url": "https://api.example.com/alerts",
      "body": "{\"action\":\"{{.Action}}\",\"monitorID\":\"{{.MonitorID}}\"}"
    }
  }
}

Troubleshooting

401 Unauthorized:

• Cause: invalid or expired token.
• Fix:
  • Verify token in ~/.axiom.toml.
  • Re-run scripts/setup and retry:
    • scripts/notifier-list <deployment>

403 Forbidden:

• Cause: token lacks required permissions.
• Fix:
  • Create/assign token scopes for monitor/notifier management and dataset query access.
  • Retry:
    • scripts/monitor-list <deployment>

404 Not Found on get/update/delete:

• Cause: wrong monitor/notifier ID or wrong deployment/org.
• Fix:
  • Confirm deployment in .axiom.toml.
  • Re-list objects and use exact IDs:
    • scripts/monitor-list <deployment> --json
    • scripts/notifier-list <deployment> --json

400 Bad Request on notifier create/update:

• Cause: invalid notifier payload shape.
• Fix:
  • Use one notifier channel inside properties.
  • For email, use emails (not recipients).
  • Validate against a known-good example and retry:
    • scripts/notifier-create <deployment> <json-file>

400 Bad Request on monitor create/update:

• Cause: invalid monitor schema, operator/type mismatch, or invalid query fields.
• Fix:
  • Validate required fields: name, type, query field, schedule, and notifierIds.
  • Confirm operator matches monitor type and threshold logic.
  • Retry:
    • scripts/monitor-create <deployment> <json-file>
    • scripts/monitor-update <deployment> <id> <json-file>

Monitor created but never alerts:

• Cause: threshold too strict, wrong query window, or not enough positive runs.
• Fix:
  • Inspect history over a known active period:
    • scripts/monitor-history <deployment> <id> <startTime> <endTime>
  • Reduce threshold or widen rangeMinutes.
  • Tune triggerAfterNPositiveResults/triggerFromNRuns.

Too many alerts (noisy monitor):

• Cause: threshold too low or interval too short.
• Fix:
  • Increase threshold.
  • Increase triggerAfterNPositiveResults and/or triggerFromNRuns.
  • Increase intervalMinutes or narrow match conditions.

Notifier exists but no delivery:

• Cause: destination config invalid (URL/key/channel/email list), or destination-side rejection.
• Fix:
  • Fetch notifier and verify destination fields:
    • scripts/notifier-get <deployment> <id>
  • Recreate/update notifier with corrected properties:
    • scripts/notifier-update <deployment> <id> <json-file>
  • Confirm monitor references correct notifier IDs.