Create your first watcher on Grafana Labs

Keep the scope narrow

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Keep the scope narrow

Focus the watcher on one service or failure mode and the signals that need attention. For example, watch checkout on its own rather than checkout, payments, and inventory together.

A checkout watcher is one service and one question: does checkout recover after a rollout, or does it stay broken?

Pick something with live data

Calibration fails if your data sources have no telemetry for what you describe, so pick one service or job that’s sending data now, and select the Datasources that contain its telemetry. If you’re not sure what has data, the hands-on path includes an optional step that runs a query in Explore to list the Prometheus jobs that are up.

Name it so you can find it later

In Name, enter the service or check you want to watch, as a name you’ll recognize in the Watchers list.

Give the watcher context

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Give the watcher context

Telemetry can show that checkout errors rose. It can’t show that a short spike during a rollout is expected, or how quickly the service should recover.

In Give the watcher context, describe what to monitor and the behavior you expect, such as brief error spikes during deployments. Include relevant alert rules or dashboards.

For example:

Watch the checkout service in production. Short error spikes during deploys are expected, but errors should recover within a few minutes.

Name the same service here as in Name.

How calibration works

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How calibration works

Clicking Create watcher saves the watcher and starts calibration. Calibration builds checks from your description and data sources, plus a baseline that each run compares your telemetry against. Calibration runs in the background, and you can leave the page while it runs.

Depending on your data sources, checks can include PromQL, LogQL, TraceQL metrics, BigQuery SQL, and Grafana-managed alert checks. If Assistant asks questions, answer them on the Calibration tab and click Continue calibration. Only the person who started calibration can see and answer them.

If calibration stops, it explains why. Correct the description or data sources, then click Retry calibration.

What happens when calibration succeeds

Successful calibration starts monitoring automatically. The watcher runs on the schedule set in Repeats on the form, which defaults to Every 10 minutes. The switch at the top of the page, to the left of Run now, reads Active.

Run now triggers one extra run right away, so you don’t have to wait for the next scheduled run.
Turn off the Active switch to pause scheduled runs without deleting the watcher.
The Calibration tab holds the watcher goal, the Calibration baseline, and the saved checks. Review the thresholds, coverage gaps, and Calibration summary there. Calibrated checks are read-only, so if they need changes, recalibrate.
The Ongoing issues tab lists the issues the watcher is tracking, with the evidence behind each one.
The Run history tab lists recent runs. Select one to open its report.

Keep the checks current

After service changes or repeated noisy findings, click Recalibrate at the top of the watcher’s page, or Suggest a change on the Calibration tab. Optionally describe the change in What would you like to change?, for example to ignore brief latency spikes during deployments, and click Start recalibration. Recalibration pauses scanning and starts monitoring again when it succeeds.
To have Assistant review and update the checks on a schedule, open the Configuration tab, turn on Automatically update checks under Automatic actions, and choose a Review frequency. Automatic reviews don’t pause scanning, and they keep your goal, data sources, schedule, and notifications.
Calibration changes appear as versions on the Versions tab, where you can restore an earlier definition.

Create a watcher path

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Create a watcher path

In this path, you create a watcher for a service that has live data, follow calibration as it saves checks, trigger Run now, and read the run’s report on the Run history tab. You end with a calibrated watcher scanning on its schedule, which you can pause or archive afterward.

Learning path

Get started with Assistant Watchers

Create a watcher, calibrate checks against your telemetry, run it, and review the first result.

13 min

Intermediate

Docs & blog posts

Open in Grafana Cloud

Complete this learning path directly in your Grafana Cloud stack with an interactive learning experience.

Open in Grafana Cloud

View on website

Resources

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Resources

Documentation

These pages cover the workflow you practiced and the actions the hands-on path left off.

Use Assistant Watchers: Create, calibrate, run, pause, review, and troubleshoot watchers.
Manage watcher notifications: Slack, Microsoft Teams, webhooks, and launching an investigation.
Configure Slack: Connect Slack if you want Post to Slack.
Grafana Assistant Investigations: What Launch on a critical assessment starts.
Manage Assistant access with RBAC: Watchers permissions.

Create your first watcher on Grafana Labs

Keep the scope narrow

Keep the scope narrow

Pick something with live data

Name it so you can find it later

Give the watcher context

Give the watcher context

How calibration works

How calibration works

What happens when calibration succeeds

Keep the checks current

Create a watcher path

Create a watcher path

Get started with Assistant Watchers

Open in Grafana Cloud

Resources

Resources

Documentation

Community