How evaluation works

The following diagram shows how an alert moves through states.

State	Condition is:
Normal	Not met
Pending	Met, pending period has not elapsed
Alerting	Met past the pending period. Notification sent.
Recovering	No longer met, keep firing for period active

For more details on alert states and how they function, refer to View the state and health of alert rules.

How checking works

During evaluation, Grafana checks your alert rule at regular intervals. Three settings control when the rule fires:

Evaluation group: Sets how often Grafana checks the alert rules in it. You create one (or reuse an existing one), and give it a name and an interval. That way related rules can share the same schedule, for example a group of related rules checked once a minute.
Pending period: How long the condition must persist before the alert fires.
Keep firing for: How long the alert stays firing after the condition resolves.