Slack Alert Routing Policy

Owner: Anchor MSP Operations Lead Last reviewed: 2026-04-04

Purpose

Define how alerts route from Alertmanager to Slack channels. Every alert must land in a monitored channel.

Scope

All alerts from all managed systems.

Channel Structure

Channel	Severity	Monitoring Expectation
#alerts-critical	Critical	Monitored 24/7. Also triggers SMS.
#alerts-high	High	Monitored during business hours and by on-call.
#alerts-medium	Medium	Reviewed next business day.
#alerts-low	Low	Reviewed weekly.

Policy

1. Alertmanager routes alerts by the severity label to the matching Slack channel via webhook integration.
2. No alert routes to a general channel, a personal DM, or an unmonitored destination.
3. Every managed system must have its alerts routing to these four channels before the handoff acceptance checklist is complete.
4. Critical alerts post to #alerts-critical and trigger SMS escalation. Both must fire.
5. Alert messages must include: system name, alert name, severity, description, and a link to the relevant Grafana dashboard.
6. Silencing an alert in Alertmanager must be logged with a reason and an expiration time. Open-ended silences are not permitted.

Exceptions

Routing a specific alert to an additional channel (e.g., a system-specific channel) is allowed as long as it also routes to the standard severity channel. The standard channel is never bypassed.