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`

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.”

The diagram shows a sample notification.

The summary is a short sentence that explains what happened. For example, request duration exceeded the threshold on an affected service. The description can include more detail, like which service triggered it or what to check first.

While summary and description on the alert rule are optional, they are considered good practice.

This matters because the person receiving the notification needs to understand the problem immediately. Without a clear summary, they have to open Grafana and investigate before they even know what’s wrong.

Notification message