---
title: "Why build an alert rule? | Grafana Labs"
description: "An alert rule turns telemetry into action so you find problems before your users do."
---

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

# Why build an alert rule?

An alert rule watches your data, fires when something looks wrong, and notifies the right people. You hear about problems before your users do.

In this path, you build every part of an alert rule in order:

- A query that picks what to watch
- A condition that decides when to fire
- A folder and labels that organize and route it
- Evaluation settings that control how often it runs and how long it must be wrong before firing
- A contact point and message that decide who hears about it and what they see

You’ll use the QuickPizza tutorial data sources. The next milestone installs them, then the one after opens the new alert rule page so you can name your rule.