Documentationbreadcrumb arrow Grafana Cloudbreadcrumb arrow Alerts and IRMbreadcrumb arrow Alertingbreadcrumb arrow Configure notificationsbreadcrumb arrow Configure contact pointsbreadcrumb arrow Slack
Grafana Cloud Enterprise Open source

Configure Slack for Alerting

Use the Grafana Alerting - Slack integration to send Slack notifications when your alerts are firing.

There are two ways of integrating Slack into Grafana Alerting.

  1. Use a Slack API token

    Enable your app to access the Slack API. If, for example, you are interested in more granular control over permissions, or your project is expected to regularly scale, resulting in new channels being created, this is the best option.

  2. Use a Webhook URL

    Webhooks is the simpler way to post messages into Slack. Slack automatically creates a bot user with all the necessary permissions to post messages to one particular channel of your choice.

Note that you can only setup one Slack channel per contact point.

You can customize the title and body of the Slack message using notification templates; however, you cannot modify its visual appearance with custom blocks. Additional optional settings are available to customize bot appearance, mentions, and message formatting. Refer to the Optional settings section for more details.

Before you begin

Slack API Token

If you are using a Slack API Token, complete the following steps.

  1. Follow step 1 of the Slack API Quickstart to create the app.

  2. Continue onto the second step of the Slack API Quickstart and add the chat:write.public scope as described to give your app the ability to post in all public channels without joining.

  3. In OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace, copy the Bot User OAuth Token.

  4. Open your Slack workplace.

  5. Right click the channel you want to receive notifications in.

  6. Click View channel details.

  7. Scroll down and copy the Channel ID.

    Note that while going through these steps, Slack may prompt you to Reinstall your app in order for the changes to take effect.

Webhook URL

If you are using a Webhook URL, complete the following steps.

  1. Follow the Creating an app section of the Slack API Quickstart to create the app.
  2. Follow the Create an incoming webhook section of the Slack Incoming Webhooks guide to enable incoming webhooks for your app and create a webhook for your workspace.
  3. Copy the Webhook URL that starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/. You need this when setting up your contact point integration in Grafana Alerting.

Procedure

To create your Slack integration in Grafana Alerting, complete the following steps.

  1. Navigate to Alerts & IRM -> Alerting -> Notification configuration, then select the Contact points tab.

  2. Click + Add contact point.

  3. Enter a contact point name.

  4. From the Integration list, select Slack.

  5. If you are using a Slack API token:

    • In the Recipient field, copy in the channel ID.
    • In the Token field, copy in the Bot User OAuth Token that starts with “xoxb-”.

  6. If you are using a Webhook URL, in the Webhook field, copy in your Slack app Webhook URL.

  7. Click Test to check that your integration works.

    ** For Grafana Alertmanager only.**

  8. Click Save contact point.

Optional settings

You can configure additional settings to customize your Slack notifications beyond the required fields.

Customize bot appearance

You can customize how the bot appears in Slack channels:

OptionDescription
UsernameOverride the default bot username that appears in Slack. Set the username field to customize the display name.
Icon emojiProvide an emoji to use as the icon for the message. Set the icon_emoji field (for example, :rocket:). This overrides the icon URL.
Icon URLProvide a URL to an image to use as the icon for the message. Set the icon_url field with the image URL.

Configure mentions

You can automatically mention users, groups, or the entire channel when notifications are sent:

OptionDescription
Mention usersMention one or more specific users in the notification. Set the mentionUsers field with a comma-separated list of user IDs (for example, U024BE7LH,U024BE7LJ). To find a user’s ID, refer to Slack’s documentation on finding member IDs.
Mention groupsMention one or more user groups in the notification. Set the mentionGroups field with a comma-separated list of group IDs. You can copy group IDs from the group’s Slack profile URL.
Mention channelMention the entire channel or active members. Set the mentionChannel field to one of the following:
- Empty or omit the field to disable channel mentions
- here to mention every active channel member
- channel to mention every channel member

Customize message content

You can customize the notification message using notification templates:

OptionDescription
TitleSet a custom title for the Slack message. Use the title field with template variables (for example, {{ template "slack.default.title" . }}).
Text bodySet a custom body text for the Slack message. Use the text field with template variables (for example, {{ template "slack.default.text" . }}).
ColorSet the color of the vertical bar on the left side of the message attachment. Use the color field.

Advanced configuration

For specialized environments, you can override the default Slack API endpoint:

OptionDescription
Endpoint URLSpecify a custom Slack API endpoint for non-webhook requests. Set the endpointUrl field to your custom endpoint. The default is https://slack.com/api/chat.postMessage.

Next steps

The Slack contact point is ready to receive alert notifications.

To add this contact point to your alert, complete the following steps.

  1. In Grafana, navigate to Alerting > Alert rules.
  2. Edit or create a new alert rule.
  3. Scroll down to the Configure labels and notifications section.
  4. Under Notifications click Select contact point.
  5. From the drop-down menu, select the previously created contact point.
  6. Click Save rule and exit.