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Contact points define where alert notifications are sent. They represent integrations with external systems like email, Slack, PagerDuty, and many others.

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Contact Point Structure

A contact point can contain multiple integrations (receivers) that share the same name: 
interface EmbeddedContactPoint {
  uid: string;              // Unique identifier
  name: string;             // Contact point name (shared across integrations)
  type: NotifierType;       // Integration type
  settings: object;         // Type-specific configuration
  disableResolveMessage: boolean;
  provenance?: string;      // 'file' | 'api' | undefined
}

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Integration Configuration

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Email

{
  "uid": "email-1",
  "name": "ops-team",
  "type": "email",
  "settings": {
    "addresses": "[email protected],[email protected]",
    "singleEmail": false
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}
​
settings.addresses
string
required
Comma-separated list of email addresses
​
settings.singleEmail
boolean
default:"false"
Send a single email with all alerts (true) or separate emails (false)

​
Slack

{
  "uid": "slack-1",
  "name": "engineering",
  "type": "slack",
  "settings": {
    "url": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
    "recipient": "#alerts",
    "username": "Grafana",
    "icon_emoji": ":bell:",
    "icon_url": "",
    "mentionChannel": "here",
    "mentionUsers": "",
    "mentionGroups": "",
    "title": "{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}",
    "text": "{{ range .Alerts }}{{ .Annotations.description }}{{ end }}"
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}
​
settings.url
string
required
Slack webhook URL (incoming webhook)
​
settings.recipient
string
Channel name (e.g., #alerts) or user (e.g., @username)
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settings.mentionChannel
string
Mention channel: here, channel, or empty
​
settings.mentionUsers
string
Comma-separated user IDs to mention

​
PagerDuty

{
  "uid": "pd-1",
  "name": "oncall",
  "type": "pagerduty",
  "settings": {
    "integrationKey": "${PAGERDUTY_KEY}",
    "severity": "critical",
    "class": "grafana-alert",
    "component": "monitoring",
    "group": "infrastructure",
    "summary": "{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}"
  },
  "secureFields": {
    "integrationKey": true
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}
​
settings.integrationKey
string
required
PagerDuty integration key (stored securely)
​
settings.severity
string
Severity level: critical, error, warning, info

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Webhook

{
  "uid": "webhook-1",
  "name": "custom-system",
  "type": "webhook",
  "settings": {
    "url": "https://example.com/webhook",
    "httpMethod": "POST",
    "username": "",
    "password": "",
    "authorization_scheme": "Bearer",
    "authorization_credentials": "${API_TOKEN}",
    "maxAlerts": 0,
    "title": "{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}",
    "message": "{{ .CommonAnnotations.summary }}"
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}
​
settings.url
string
required
Webhook endpoint URL
​
settings.httpMethod
string
default:"POST"
HTTP method: POST, PUT
​
settings.authorization_scheme
string
Authorization scheme: Bearer, Basic, or custom

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Microsoft Teams

{
  "uid": "teams-1",
  "name": "devops",
  "type": "teams",
  "settings": {
    "url": "https://outlook.office.com/webhook/...",
    "title": "{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}",
    "message": "{{ range .Alerts }}{{ .Annotations.description }}{{ end }}",
    "sectiontitle": "Alert Details"
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}

​
Discord

{
  "uid": "discord-1",
  "name": "monitoring",
  "type": "discord",
  "settings": {
    "url": "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...",
    "avatar_url": "",
    "use_discord_username": false,
    "message": "{{ .CommonAnnotations.summary }}",
    "title": "{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}"
  },
  "disableResolveMessage": false
}

​
Secure Fields

Sensitive data (API keys, passwords) are stored securely: 
{
  "uid": "slack-1",
  "name": "team",
  "type": "slack",
  "settings": {
    "url": "${SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL}",  // Reference to secure storage
    "recipient": "#alerts"
  },
  "secureFields": {
    "url": true  // Indicates this field is encrypted
  }
}
Secure fields:
  • Are encrypted at rest
  • Cannot be read via API (only written)
  • Use ${VAR_NAME} syntax in provisioning
  • Show as true in secureFields when set

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Notification Options

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Disable Resolve Messages

{
  "disableResolveMessage": true
}
When true, only firing alerts are sent. Resolution notifications are suppressed.

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Notification Templates

Use Go templates to customize notification content: 
// Available in all templates
{{ .Status }}              // firing or resolved
{{ .CommonLabels }}        // Labels common to all alerts
{{ .CommonAnnotations }}   // Annotations common to all alerts
{{ .GroupLabels }}         // Labels used for grouping
{{ .ExternalURL }}         // Link to Grafana
{{ .Alerts }}              // List of all alerts
{{ .Alerts.Firing }}       // List of firing alerts
{{ .Alerts.Resolved }}     // List of resolved alerts

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Contact Point Metadata

interface ContactPointWithMetadata {
  name: string;
  integrations: Integration[];
  
  // Metadata
  numberOfPolicies: number;    // How many policies use this
  receiverStatus?: {           // Delivery status
    active: boolean;
    errorCount: number;
    notifiers: NotifierStatus[];
  };
}

​
Provisioning Contact Points

# conf/provisioning/alerting/contactpoints.yaml
apiVersion: 1

contactPoints:
  - orgId: 1
    name: ops-team
    receivers:
      - uid: email-ops
        type: email
        settings:
          addresses: [email protected]
        disableResolveMessage: false
      
      - uid: slack-ops
        type: slack
        settings:
          url: ${SLACK_WEBHOOK}
          recipient: '#ops'
          title: '{{ .CommonLabels.alertname }}'
        disableResolveMessage: false

​
Backend Components

// Location: pkg/services/ngalert/api/tooling/definitions
type EmbeddedContactPoint struct {
    UID                   string
    Name                  string
    Type                  string
    DisableResolveMessage bool
    Settings              *simplejson.Json
    Provenance            string
}

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Validation

Contact points are validated before being saved:
1

Type Validation

Integration type must be supported
2

Settings Validation

Required settings for the integration type must be provided
3

Name Validation

Name must be unique within the organization
4

Template Validation

Notification templates must be valid Go templates
5

URL Validation

Webhook URLs and other URLs must be valid

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Testing Contact Points

Grafana provides a test feature to verify configuration: 
POST /api/alertmanager/grafana/config/api/v1/receivers/test

Body:
{
  "name": "test-receiver",
  "grafana_managed_receiver_configs": [
    {
      "uid": "test-1",
      "name": "test-receiver",
      "type": "slack",
      "settings": {
        "url": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/...",
        "recipient": "#test"
      }
    }
  ],
  "alert": {
    "labels": { "alertname": "TestAlert" },
    "annotations": { "description": "This is a test" }
  }
}

​
Best Practices

Name contact points after the team or purpose (e.g., backend-team, critical-alerts, ops-pagerduty).
Use templates to make notifications informative and actionable. Include:
  • Alert name and severity
  • Relevant metric values
  • Runbook links
  • Dashboard links
Always test contact points before using them in production notification policies.
Use secure fields for API keys, tokens, and passwords. Never commit secrets to version control.
Only disable resolve messages if the integration doesn’t support them or they’re not useful.

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Troubleshooting

  • Check notification policy routes to this contact point
  • Verify integration credentials are correct
  • Check contact point status for errors
  • Review alertmanager logs
  • Validate Go template syntax
  • Check that referenced labels/annotations exist
  • Test with the contact point test feature
  • Slack: Verify webhook URL and channel name
  • Email: Check SMTP configuration in grafana.ini
  • PagerDuty: Confirm integration key is correct
  • Webhook: Check endpoint is accessible and accepts POST

Notification Policies

Route alerts to contact points

Alert Rules

Create rules that generate alerts

Notification Templates

Customize notification content

Overview

Understand the alerting architecture

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