Triggers let you receive notifications when your data in Honeycomb crosses the thresholds that you configure. The graph on which to alert is as flexible as a Honeycomb query, which helps reduce false positives due to known errors. To learn more about guidelines for using SLOs and Triggers for alerting, visit Guidelines for SLOs and Trigger Alerts.
When a trigger fires, you will be notified by the configured method(s). Currently supported methods include PagerDuty, Slack, Webhooks, and Email. The notification includes a link back to the graph, which shows the current status and provides a jumping off point for further investigation.
Triggers have a duration over which they query data and a frequency, which determines how often they run. For example, a trigger with a duration of 5 minutes and a frequency of 2 minutes will run every 2 minutes over the last 5 minutes of data.
By default, users have a limit of two triggers available across all environments. Upgrade to a Pro or Enterprise plan to increase your number of Triggers.
Some common ways teams use Triggers to monitor system health, cost, and activity patterns include:
| Use Case | Description |
|---|---|
| Lambda cost spikes | Spot sudden increases in usage or billing. Track the cost of Lambda queries, and alert when they exceed a defined “normal” range. |
| Database connection limits | Prevent service interruptions. Determine your database connection limit, and alert when database connection counts approach or exceed that saturation threshold. |
| Kubernetes component status | Monitor the status of Kubernetes components. For example, detect failed or delayed pod startups, which could indicate a failed deployment or infrastructure problem. |
| High login activity | Identify unusual spikes in login attempts, which can signal security issues such as credential stuffing or brute-force attacks. Determine what qualifies as a high number of login attempts in your environment, and alert when activity exceeds that threshold. |
| Internal operations check | Confirm that internal operations (like a CronJob) ran as expected. Alert if the operation is missing or failed. |
Create a trigger, define recipients, and activate a trigger using the Honeycomb UI.
Explore examples of trigger notifications, which you can use as inspiration for defining and configuring your own triggers.
