---
title: "Notification message | Grafana Labs"
description: "How summary and description annotations give responders context before they open Grafana."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Notification message

When an alert fires, the notification includes:

- **Alert name:** identifies which rule fired
- **Status:** either **Firing** or **Resolved**
- **Labels:** the tags attached to the alert

## Add context with annotations

You add **summary** and **description** as optional annotations on the alert rule in the rule editor. You do not set them on the contact point or notification template. When the rule fires, Grafana injects that text into the notification your contact point sends to Slack, email, or another integration.

| Annotation  | Purpose                                          | Example                                                           |
|-------------|--------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Summary     | One sentence explaining what happened            | `Request duration exceeded the threshold on the affected service` |
| Description | Additional detail about what to check or do next | `Check the affected service for slow responses`                   |

[Centered example notification with dashed boxes for status, alert name, labels, summary, and description, plus side callouts](slack-incident-annotations.svg "Centered example notification with dashed boxes for status, alert name, labels, summary, and description, plus side callouts")

## Why this matters

The person receiving the notification needs to understand the problem immediately. A clear summary reduces the time between “alert received” and “investigation started.”