Notification channels and integrations
Two layers that give you precise control over who gets alerted, how, and through which channels.
Most monitoring tools wire alerts directly from a monitor to a destination. WatchCat uses two distinct concepts — integrations and notification channels — so you can reuse connections, mix destinations, and manage alert routing without editing every monitor individually.
Integrations — where alerts go
An integration is one outbound connection to an external destination. WatchCat supports:
You create an integration once and reuse it across multiple notification channels. A single "Slack #incidents" integration can appear in a "Backend team" channel and a "DevOps" channel at the same time — no duplicate setup required.
After creating an integration, use the Send test alert button on its page to confirm the connection works before wiring it into any monitors.
Notification channels — who gets alerted
A notification channel is a named bundle of email recipients and integrations. When a monitor opens or closes an incident, WatchCat delivers alerts to every integration and email address in that channel.
Each channel has two optional settings:
Auto-assign to new monitors
This channel is pre-selected whenever you create a new monitor. Useful for a shared team-wide channel so nothing goes unmonitored by default.
Send recovery alerts
When enabled, a recovery message is sent when a monitor returns to OK. Turn this off on channels where teams only want to know about failures, not resolutions.
Monitors choose notification channels
When you create or edit a monitor, you select which notification channels it uses under Notifications. A monitor can use multiple channels, and one channel can serve many monitors.
This separation means you can change where alerts go by updating a channel once, rather than editing every monitor that uses it.
Pausing a channel
You can pause a notification channel without touching any monitors. While paused, alerts are suppressed for all monitors that use that channel — useful for planned maintenance windows when you want silence without disabling monitors entirely.
Pausing affects the whole channel: all integrations and email recipients inside it. To silence only one destination (e.g. Slack) while keeping email active, put them in separate channels.
Example setups
Solo developer or small team
One channel called "Team alerts" with your email address and a Slack integration pointing to #incidents. Enable auto-assign so every new monitor is covered automatically. This is the minimal setup that works for most teams.
Different urgency levels
Two channels: Critical alerts (Slack + email, send recovery alerts on) for payment APIs and customer-facing services; Low priority (email only, recovery alerts off) for internal tools and batch jobs. Assign monitors to the channel that matches their business impact.
Multiple teams
Three channels — Backend, Frontend, and Ops — each pointing to a different Slack channel and the relevant team email list. Each team only gets alerted for the monitors that belong to them, and a single Slack integration per channel handles delivery for all monitors in that group.
Compliance-sensitive setup
Down alerts include a short snippet from the response body. If your monitored
endpoints return PII or sensitive records, point them at a dedicated health endpoint
(e.g. /health)
that returns only a status code or a safe JSON object.
If alert content must stay within the EU, use only email or a custom webhook pointing to an EU-hosted endpoint. Keep Slack, Discord, and Google Chat integrations out of those channels — all three route through US-based infrastructure.
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