Routing

Route notifications to different teams within the same destination or across different destinations using routers.

Overview

Once you have set up one or more connectors and presets for your notifications, routing allows you to route notifications within the same destination or across different destinations. For example, you can configure different metric alerts to be sent to specific R&D teams based on the triggered application.

Routers

Routers are created using labels and other filters, attached to a specific entity type such as Alerts or Cases. When a notification request contains the labels matching those configured in a router, the notification is routed based on the rules defined in the router.

Routing rules

Once a notification request matches the filters defined within a router, rules defined within the router are applied. Rules set the conditions for sending a notification to a destination, a connector-preset combination. This is useful for routing a notification based on attributes like priority, source, or labels. For example, you might send P3 (warning) Alerts to Slack and P1 (critical) Alerts to PagerDuty.

Routing rules for each router are evaluated simultaneously. Any rule that matches will be triggered, and the notification will be sent to all associated destinations. Rule order does not matter.

Use label-based routers to organize and manage notification routing at scale. Routers let you group routing rules by labels such as group, environment, and service.

Each router is responsible for delivering notifications based on routing labels, helping teams maintain separate and simplified configurations.

How label-based routers work

When Notification Center receives a notification request, it evaluates the request against the configured routing labels to determine which routers to use.

Matching a router

A notification request is matched to a router if all routing labels defined in the router are also present in the notification request.

If any label defined in the router is missing from the request, that router won’t be selected.

Processing a matched router

After a router is matched:

1. Notification Center evaluates all routing rules within the router in parallel.
2. Based on the results of these evaluations, the router sends the notification to the configured destinations specified in each matching rule.

Create a Router

To create a router:

1. Access Integrations > Notification Center > Routers tab.
2. Select Create Router. The Create Router page opens.
3. In the Details section, enter a unique, descriptive name for the router. Example: SRE - Production Router
4. In Description, add a short explanation of the router’s purpose. Example: Routes production alerts to the SRE PagerDuty integration.

5. In the Matching routing labels section, define how alerts will match this router. An alert must contain all of the routing labels defined here to be routed through this configuration.

   You can set one or more of the following labels:

   • Group – Select the team or business group this router applies to.
   • Environment – Select the environment such as prod, staging, or dev.
   • Service – (Optional) Select a specific service handled by this router.

   Note: At least one matching routing label is required. Each router must have a unique label combination.

6. (Optional) In the Fallback field, select a connector (for example, Slack, PagerDuty, or Webhook).

   The fallback connector ensures notifications are still delivered if none of the router’s rules match an alert.

7. Review all fields to confirm the configuration.

8. Select Create Router to save the router.

After the router is created, it appears in the Routers list. You can open it at any time to add or modify routing rules.

Create a routing rule

Routing rules control when notifications are sent, where they go, and how they appear. By defining rules within label-based routers for specific teams, environments, or services, customers can reduce alert noise, ensure accurate delivery, and simplify management. This approach improves scalability, keeps configurations isolated, and maintains compatibility with existing setups.

To create a routing rule for a router:

1. In the Notification Center, open the Routers tab.
2. Select the router where you want to add the rule. The router details page opens.
3. In the Routing rules section, select + New rule. The Routing rule editor opens.
4. In the Details section, enter a name for the rule. For example, P1 Alerts.

5. In the Condition section, define when this rule should trigger. Use conditions to specify exactly when the routing rule applies. The condition must evaluate to true for the rule to run. You can base conditions on alert fields such as severity, priority, or custom labels. Example:

   alertDef.priority == "P1"
   

Use true as the condition if you want the rule to always apply for alerts that match the router.

1. In the Destinations section, select one or more connectors where notifications should be sent when the condition is met.
   • Connector – Choose the destination integration (for example, Slack, PagerDuty, or Webhook).
   • Preset – Choose how the message is formatted and what content it includes.
2. (Optional) To send the notification to additional destinations, select Add destination and repeat the previous step.
3. Review your configuration.
4. Select Save changes to create the rule.

The new rule appears in the Routing rules list for the router. When an alert matches the router and meets the rule condition, the Notification Center sends notifications to the selected destinations using the chosen presets.

Add Labels to Alerts

Routers rely on labels within alerts to determine routing.

Each alert should include the same label key-value pairs defined in your routers. For example, routing.group: security or routing.environment: prod.

Note: You add and manage labels when defining an alert. For full instructions on creating alerts and adding labels, see Alert Definition Management.

Examples

• Alert notification request 1: routing.group:teamA routing.environment:prod
  • Router 1: environment:prod → matched as routing label environment:prod is present in the notification request.
  • Router 2: group:teamA environment:prod  → matched as both routing labels environment:prod and group:hermes are present in the notification request.
• Alert notification request 2: routing.environment:prod
  • Router 1: environment:prod → matched as routing label environment:prod is present in the notification request.
  • Router 2: group:teamA environment:prod  → NOT matched as routing label group:teamA is not in the notification request.
• Alert notification request 3: routing.group:teamA ****routing.environment:prod routing.service:testApp
  • Router 1: group:teamA environment:prod  → matched as both routing labels environment:prod and group:teamA are present in the notification request.
  • Router 2: environment:prod  → matched as routing label environment:prod is present in the notification request.
  • Router 3: group:teamA environment:dev service:testApp   → NOT matched as routing label environment:dev is not in the notification request.

Additional resources

• Alert Definition Management Learn how to create, edit, and label alerts.
• Notification Center Overview Understand how routers, rules, and connectors work together.