Connect Slack

Send InfraNest alerts straight into a Slack channel, so your team sees incidents, expiries and status changes where they already work. When a problem is resolved, the alert in Slack updates itself and the recovery is posted as a reply in its thread, so the channel shows which recovery closed which outage.

#Connect it in InfraNest

1. Go to Integrations → Slack and select Connect.
2. Slack asks you to add InfraNest to your workspace. Check the workspace in the top right, then select Allow.
3. Back in InfraNest, pick the channel the alerts should go to. You can add more channels to the same workspace later with Add channel.
4. Select Send a test next to the new destination to check that an alert arrives in the channel you expect.

After you allow it, InfraNest sends you a welcome message in Slack. You're linked to your InfraNest account straight away, and you can pick the first channel and send a test alert from that message without coming back here. When a channel starts getting alerts, InfraNest introduces itself there once, so your team knows what the messages and buttons are.

Invite instead: type /invite @InfraNest in any channel. InfraNest then asks you, privately, whether to send your alerts there.

Private channels: a private channel only shows up in the list once you invite @InfraNest to it in Slack (type /invite @InfraNest in the channel). Public channels work without an invite.

#Act on an alert from Slack

Alerts posted through the InfraNest app carry buttons: Acknowledge while nobody is on it, Silence 1 h while the problem is open, and Open in InfraNest. When someone presses one, the alert updates for everyone in the channel, for example Acknowledged by Sam at 02:16.

Once someone is on it, the alert also offers Add a note and, when the monitor is on one of your status pages, Post a status update:

• Add a note saves a note on the incident for your team. It's posted in the alert's thread and is never public.
• Post a status update lets you pick the status (Investigating, Identified, Monitoring or Resolved), write the message, and choose whether subscribers are told. You always see a review step first, because the update is public: it appears on your status page straight away. It's then announced in the alert's thread.

The buttons act as you, with the role you have in InfraNest. The first time you press one, InfraNest sends you a private message, visible only to you, with a Link my account button. Open it while signed in to InfraNest, then press the button in Slack again. You only do this once per Slack workspace.

Create issue appears under an alert when your workspace has Jira, Linear or GitHub connected in Integrations and the incident has no issue yet. Pressing it files the incident in your tracker, in the project or team your Issues for incidents setting uses, and posts the issue's key and link in the alert's thread. The button then turns into that key, so everyone can open the issue from the alert. Pressing it twice, or two people pressing it at once, still files one issue. If more than one tracker or project could take it and none is set as the default, or your role can't change monitoring, you get a private message with Open the incident instead, and you choose there.

While an incident is open, the alert also has Ask Claude, which opens Claude with the incident's investigation ready (on plans that include incidents).

When an automation waits for approval and sends its request to a Slack channel, the message carries Approve and Reject…. Reject asks you to confirm first.

Save a message as a note: pick Add to incident as note in any message's menu (⋯ › More message shortcuts). In an alert's thread it goes on that alert's incident; anywhere else you choose the incident. Only that one message is shared with InfraNest. Post status update is also in Slack's shortcuts menu (the ⚡ or + button next to where you type).

#Use /infranest

Type /infranest in any channel or direct message. Only you see the answer.

• /infranest status shows what needs you right now.
• /infranest status api.example.com shows how one monitor, domain or server is doing. You can use a name, a URL or an ID.
• /infranest update lists the open incidents you can post a public status update on, each with a Post status update button.
• /infranest pause pauses your own alerts for an hour. Use /infranest pause tomorrow until the morning, or /infranest pause week. /infranest back turns them on again.
• /infranest run lists the manual automations you may run, each with a Run button that asks you to confirm first. /infranest run backup narrows the list.
• /infranest link links your Slack to your InfraNest account, if you haven't yet.
• /infranest help lists all of these.

The InfraNest app in Slack also has a Home tab. It shows whether your alerts are paused (with buttons to change that), what is open, who is on call when PagerDuty is connected, and which channel gets which workspace's alerts.

#Ping someone when something goes down

On the Slack destination's page, under Mention on an outage, choose who the alert pings: nobody, @here, one of your Slack user groups (such as @oncall), or whoever PagerDuty says is on call for that monitor. The ping is only on the alert that opens an outage, never on updates or when it recovers. The on-call option needs that person to have linked their Slack.

#What a channel hears, and when

On the same page, What should this destination hear? chooses All events or Urgent only, and Hours (optional) sets the hours (and days) it hears everything; outside them it hears critical events only, so an outage still gets through. "Needs you" digest posts the same list as the "needs you" email in the channel — Daily, or Weekly, on Monday — in the morning, and only when something new appears.

Under Alerts → Destinations, Monthly test sends a test alert to the channel once a month, so a channel that stopped working shows up before an outage does. See Alerts and destinations.

#Paste an InfraNest link

Paste a link to a monitor, domain or server from InfraNest into a channel, and Slack shows its name, how it is doing, and who is on it, with an Open button. Everyone in the channel sees the preview, so it only appears for your own workspace's items, in a Slack workspace where InfraNest is installed.

If you added InfraNest to Slack before these two features arrived, add it to Slack again once: under Integrations → Slack, select Add account and pick the same workspace on Slack's screen.

#Get your own alerts as Slack direct messages

Once your Slack is linked, go to My account › Notifications, choose Add Telegram or Slack, then Slack. Your own alerts then arrive as direct messages from InfraNest, and update themselves when a problem is resolved. Each one has your own buttons under it, such as Acknowledge, Silence 1 h, Remind me in 7 days or Approve a join request. They work only for you, and anything that can't be undone asks you to confirm first. There is nothing to paste. If your team hasn't added InfraNest to Slack, you'll be asked for a webhook link instead.

Change the channel: open the destination under Integrations → Slack and select Change channel. Its name, alerts and settings stay the same.

Already using a webhook? Open the destination and select Move to the InfraNest app, then pick the channel. Its name, alerts and settings stay the same, and from then on its alerts update themselves when a problem is resolved.

More than one workspace: connect again and pick the other workspace on Slack's screen. Each workspace is listed separately under Slack workspaces.

#Connect with a webhook instead

If you'd rather not add the InfraNest app to your workspace, you can paste an incoming webhook URL instead. Alerts arrive the same way, but they cannot update themselves when a problem is resolved: the recovery is posted as a new message that names the alert it closes.

1. In Slack, add an Incoming Webhooks app to your workspace (or open the existing one), choose the channel, and copy the webhook URL. Treat it like a password.
2. In InfraNest, go to Integrations → Slack, open Connect and choose the webhook option.
3. Paste the webhook URL, then select Send a test.

#Send alerts to Slack

Once the destination is saved, choose Slack when you decide which alerts go where — for example a monitor going down, a domain about to expire, or a certificate warning.

#Good to know

• InfraNest only posts to the channels you pick. It never reads your messages.
• Each channel you pick is one destination. Add another channel for a different team.
• Check connection, in a workspace's ⋯ menu under Slack workspaces, asks Slack whether InfraNest can still post in each channel, and offers the fix — Add to Slack again, Pick another channel, or inviting @InfraNest to a private channel.
• To remove a workspace, first remove the Slack destinations that use it. Remove workspace then appears in the workspace's ⋯ menu.
• If InfraNest is removed from your workspace, or a channel it posts to is archived, the destination is marked as needing attention straight away and you're told by email. Add InfraNest to Slack again, or pick another channel.
• A webhook URL is stored securely and never shown again after saving.
• Right after you add Slack, select Send a test to check that an alert arrives in the channel you expect. A destination that hasn't received anything yet keeps offering the test under Alerts → Destinations.
• While your alerts only go to email, each alert email ends with Get this in Slack next time. It opens Slack in InfraNest, ready to connect.
• Every monitor page (on its Alerts & Dependencies tab) and server page shows Who hears about this?: the destinations and people its alerts reach, with Add Slack next to them.