Check a component automatically

Updated · 3 min read

A check watches a component for you. When it fails twice in a row, it opens an incident on its own, and when it passes again, it closes it.

Add a check

Open Components, open the component, and under Checks choose Add a check. Pick its Kind:

  • HTTP: the address answers with the expected status within 10 seconds. Type the Address, an https:// or http:// address reachable from the internet, and the Expected status, or leave it at Any 2xx.
  • Keyword: the same, and the page holds a word you choose, proof that it really rendered. The Keyword is matched with its capitals, in the first megabyte of the page.
  • Heartbeat: for something with no address, like a nightly backup or a scheduled job. It calls us, and silence fails. Choose how often it calls at least once, and the Grace: how late a call may be before it counts as missed.

Choose Add the check. A check's kind never changes: to change it, delete the check and add another.

The heartbeat's address

When you add a heartbeat, its address is shown once. Copy it into your job, so it calls the address with GET or POST each time it runs:

curl -fsS https://status.example.com/heartbeat/your-address

We keep a fingerprint of it, not the address. If you lose it, choose Regenerate the address on the check's page; the old one stops working at once.

When a check fails

  • Twice in a row counts as down. The check opens an incident on its component, at Partial outage for a wrong status or a missing keyword, at Major outage when the address cannot be reached, does not answer, or a heartbeat stays silent.
  • Nobody is emailed at once. Subscribers are emailed when someone on your team posts an update on the incident, or 10 minutes after it opened if it is still open. A blip of a minute or two emails nobody.
  • One pass closes it, with a note saying when the check passed again and how long it was down. If someone on your team has written on it, the pass posts a Monitoring update instead, and you resolve it yourself.
  • A failure within 15 minutes of the close opens the same incident again rather than a new one.

During a maintenance on its component, its checks are paused and open nothing.

What your plan allows

On Free, a site has 5 checks, run every 5 minutes; on Starter, 50, run every minute. The check's page lists its results of the last 7 days, for you only. For an https:// address, the page also shows when its certificate expires, and you are alerted 14 days before.

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