Prometheus · Alert-rule review
Prometheus Alert Review Checklist
A checklist for validating Prometheus alert meaning, query correctness, duration, labels, routing, runbooks and failure behaviour.
How to use this template
1
Test rules against representative historical data.
2
Review the receiving team's ability to act on the signal.
3
Delete or redesign alerts that do not lead to a bounded decision.
Copyable template
# Prometheus alert review ## Signal - [ ] Alert represents customer impact, exhaustion or a necessary operator decision - [ ] PromQL expression is correct across missing, stale and reset series - [ ] Label matchers select only the intended services and environments - [ ] Threshold is supported by capacity, SLO or failure evidence ## Timing - [ ] Evaluation interval and for-duration match the failure timescale - [ ] Alert resolves when the actionable condition clears - [ ] Short data gaps do not create misleading recovery or firing loops - [ ] Expected deployment and maintenance behaviour is accounted for ## Routing and context - [ ] Ownership labels route to a staffed receiver - [ ] Summary identifies the affected service and condition - [ ] Annotations link to a current, permission-accessible runbook - [ ] Grouping and inhibition avoid notification floods ## Validation - [ ] promtool validates the rule file - [ ] Unit tests cover firing, non-firing and missing-data cases - [ ] A test notification reaches the intended receiver - [ ] Review date and accountable owner are recorded
Related KBY resources
Engineering signal
Follow Prometheus failures and fixes
One useful weekly email with new error references, tools, integration notes and production lessons. No daily noise.