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Pending period and keep firing for

Pending period and keep firing for

Alert lifecycle diagram with orange dashed highlights around the Pending and Recovering states

The pending period prevents false positives

Temporary data spikes can briefly cross the threshold without indicating a real problem. That means you don’t need an alert to fire. The pending period requires the condition to persist across multiple checks before firing.

For example, a 5m pending period with a 1m evaluation interval means the condition must stay above your threshold for five consecutive checks before the alert fires.

Data often arrives a little late, so the newest data point can be incomplete when Grafana runs a check. Because the pending period waits for several checks in a row, one reading based on partial data won’t fire the alert on its own.

Reduce alert fatigue through evaluation behavior

When a condition hovers near the threshold, the alert can fire and resolve repeatedly. Keep firing for holds the firing state briefly after the condition resolves, so you only receive a resolved notification when the problem is genuinely gone.

Script

The pending period is a safeguard against false positives. It makes the condition persist across several checks before the alert fires, so a short spike across the boundary doesn’t page you. It also helps when the newest data is still arriving at check time.

Keep firing for does the opposite on the way out. After the condition resolves, the alert stays in a firing-related state for a short window, so a value hovering near the boundary doesn’t cause fire-and-resolve spam.

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