Dt Alerting

dt-alerting

Configure and understand the full alerting lifecycle in Dynatrace — from anomaly detector setup through Grail event storage, problem grouping, and workflow notification delivery.

The Alerting Lifecycle

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Alert Sources — five categories, each fires a DAVIS_EVENT          │
│  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────  │
│  1. DQL-based  · Grail-scheduled server-side detector               │
│  2. Edge       · OneAgent on monitored host or process              │
│  3. Pipeline   · OpenPipeline ingest-stream filter matcher          │
│  4. Synthetic  · Worldwide synthetic checker node                   │
│  5. External   · Events API, Workflow, or OneAgent local ingest     │
└──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                               │ DAVIS_EVENT created per trigger per entity
                               ▼
             ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
             │  Event stored in Grail              │  Persisted and queryable via DQL.
             └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘  One event per trigger per entity.
                                │ correlated by root-cause and impact graph
                                ▼
             ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
             │  Problem (Denoising)                │  Events sharing the same root-cause
             └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘  and impact graph → one Problem.
                                │ problem event triggers workflow
                                ▼
             ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
             │  Workflow Notification              │  Filters problems and routes to
             └─────────────────────────────────────┘  email, Slack, ServiceNow, webhook.

When to Use This Skill

• Detector setup — "How do I create an anomaly detector?", "What kind of detector should I use?", "What is the difference between adaptive and seasonal?"
• Alert event history — "Query all alert events for this service", "Show me which metrics triggered alerts last week"
• Problem denoising — "Why did these two alerts merge into one problem?", "How does Davis group alerts?"
• Notification setup — "How do I send a Slack message when a problem opens?", "Set up a ServiceNow ticket on critical problems"
• Best practices — "How do I avoid alert storms?", "Which sensitivity setting should I use?"
• Over-alerting analysis — "Why am I getting too many alerts?", "How do I reduce alert fatigue?", "Which detector is firing the most?", "How do I tune sensitivity or thresholds to avoid noise?"
• Notification routing — "How do I route alerts to the right team?", "Set up scalable problem filters in workflows", "Send Slack notifications only to the team responsible for the affected service"

Agent Instructions

First step for any alerting setup request — Before recommending a specific detector or model, load references/anomaly-detectors.md and use its category and model decision guide to identify which detector category (DQL-based, Edge, Pipeline, Synthetic, External) and which model (Static, Adaptive, Seasonal) best fits the user's use-case. Only proceed with configuration guidance once the right detector type has been established.

Consolidate, don't multiply — When a user asks to alert on multiple entities of the same kind (e.g. "alert on services A, B, and C"), always recommend a single combined detector rather than one detector per entity. Use by: { <dimension> } in the DQL timeseries call to split results per entity, and a single filter: clause to scope to the relevant entities. Pair the combined detector with a single dt.alert_group tag shared across all alert conditions and the corresponding workflow notification filter. This keeps the number of detector configs small, ensures consistent routing, and makes the workflow notification channel reusable for future entities added to the same group.

Example for three services — one detector, one workflow:

timeseries avg(dt.service.request.response_time),
  by: { dt.smartscape.service },
  filter: { in(dt.smartscape.service, {toSmartscapeId("SERVICE-0000000000000001"), toSmartscapeId("SERVICE-0000000000000002"), toSmartscapeId("SERVICE-0000000000000003")}) }

Set dt.alert_group: "checkout-team" in the detector's event properties, then filter the notification workflow on matchesPhrase(dt.alert_group, "checkout-team"). If a new service must be covered, add it to the single filter: list — no new detector or workflow rule needed.

Intent Mapping

Analyzing existing problems — If the user wants to query or investigate active/closed problems (root cause, impact, trending), load dt-obs-problems instead. This skill covers configuration and flow, not problem query analytics.

Detector health monitoring — If the user asks whether detectors are running or failing, load dt-platform (ANALYZER_EXECUTION_EVENT, ANOMALY_DETECTOR_STATUS_EVENT). This skill covers setup, not operational health.

Prerequisites

• Access to a Dynatrace environment with Settings v2 write permissions for detector configuration
• For querying alert history: DQL permissions on dt.davis.events
• Load dt-dql-essentials before writing DQL queries

Knowledge Base Structure

Key Concepts

Alert Source Categories

Five fundamental categories of anomaly detectors, distinguished by where detection runs and how the alert event reaches Dynatrace:

See references/anomaly-detectors.md for the full breakdown of each category, including trade-offs and configuration entry points.