Notification Channels

Notification channels determine where alert notifications are delivered. PulsAPI supports four channel types out of the box. You can enable multiple channels and reference any combination of them in your alert rules.

Supported channels

Email

Email notifications are enabled by default for every PulsAPI account. Alerts are sent to the email address associated with your account.

Configuration

1. Go to Dashboard → Settings → Notification Channels.
2. Under Email, verify the delivery address is correct.
3. Optionally click Send Test Email to confirm delivery.

Slack

Connect a Slack workspace to receive alert messages in any channel.

Setup steps

1. In your Slack workspace, go to the channel where you want to receive alerts.
2. Open the channel settings and select Integrations → Webhooks (or create an Incoming Webhook from the Slack API dashboard).
3. Copy the Webhook URL Slack provides.
4. In PulsAPI, go to Dashboard → Settings → Notification Channels.
5. Click + Add Channel and select Slack.
6. Paste the Webhook URL and give the channel a label (e.g., "ops-alerts").
7. Click Save, then Send Test Message to verify.

What the message looks like

Slack notifications include:

• Service name and new status
• Severity badge (color-coded)
• Timestamp
• Direct link to the service detail page on PulsAPI

Discord

PulsAPI can post alerts to any Discord text channel using a webhook.

Setup steps

1. In your Discord server, open the target channel's settings.
2. Go to Integrations → Webhooks and click New Webhook.
3. Copy the Webhook URL.
4. In PulsAPI, go to Dashboard → Settings → Notification Channels.
5. Click + Add Channel and select Discord.
6. Paste the Webhook URL and add a label.
7. Click Save, then Send Test Message to verify.

Custom Webhooks

For advanced integrations (PagerDuty, Opsgenie, internal tools, etc.), use a custom webhook.

Setup steps

1. Go to Dashboard → Settings → Notification Channels.
2. Click + Add Channel and select Custom Webhook.
3. Enter the Endpoint URL (must be HTTPS).
4. Optionally add custom Headers (e.g., Authorization: Bearer <token>).
5. Choose the HTTP method — POST is recommended and the default.
6. Click Save, then Send Test Payload to verify.

Payload format

PulsAPI sends a JSON payload on every alert:

{
  "event": "status_change",
  "service": {
    "id": "svc_abc123",
    "name": "AWS EC2",
    "status": "major_outage",
    "previous_status": "operational"
  },
  "severity": "critical",
  "rule": {
    "id": "rule_xyz789",
    "name": "Production outage alert"
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-03-14T12:34:56Z"
}

Managing channels

Editing a channel

1. Go to Dashboard → Settings → Notification Channels.
2. Click the channel name or the pencil icon.
3. Update the URL, label, or headers.
4. Click Save.

Deleting a channel

1. Click the trash icon next to the channel.
2. Confirm the deletion.