---
title: "How a watcher differs from an alert rule | Grafana Labs"
description: "A watcher uses the intent you describe. An alert rule uses a query and condition you write. Assistant can recommend either or both for a service."
---

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

# How a watcher differs from an alert rule

A Grafana **alert rule** is a query you write with a fixed condition. A watcher is different: you describe what healthy looks like, and Assistant turns that into checks against your data.

For checkout, an alert rule fires when error rate stays above 5% for the **pending period** you set, which is how long the condition must be met before the rule starts firing. A watcher can also use context you give it, such as that short spikes during a rollout are expected and that checkout should recover within a few minutes.

|                      | Alert rule                                                     | Watcher                                                                                    |
|----------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **You provide**      | A query, condition, and pending period                         | Intent: what healthy looks like, including noise you expect                                |
| **What “bad” is**    | A threshold you wrote                                          | Checks Assistant derived from your data                                                    |
| **What it produces** | Fires when the condition holds for the pending period          | An assessment for each completed run: **All clear**, **Flagged**, or **Escalated**         |
| **How it notifies**  | To a destination you choose, directly or through routing rules | Through the Slack, Microsoft Teams, webhook, or Grafana Alerting notifications you turn on |

An alert rule’s destination is a **contact point**, for example an email address or a Slack channel. The routing rules that decide which alert reaches which contact point are **notification policies**.

## How they work together

A watcher can send its findings to Grafana Alerting. Your notification policies and contact points then control delivery, the same way they do for alert rules.

To decide for a specific service, use Assistant’s **Alerts & Watchers** mode. Describe the service or scope you want to review, and Assistant recommends alerts, watchers, both, or no notification based on your telemetry and needs.

The hands-on path creates a watcher and leaves its notification and investigation actions off.