> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.devhelm.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Incident Policies
> Configure DevHelm incident trigger rules, confirmation windows, and recovery behavior
Every monitor has an incident policy that controls when incidents open, how they're confirmed, and when they auto-resolve. A policy has three components: trigger rules, a confirmation policy, and a recovery policy.
**Define this in code.** Manage incident policies as part of your monitoring-as-code workflow:
[YAML format](/mac/yaml/monitors) · [Terraform](/mac/terraform/monitors) · [CI/CD patterns](/mac/ci-cd/overview)
## Trigger rules
Trigger rules define the conditions that open an incident from check results. Each monitor can have multiple rules at different severities.
### Rule types
| Type | Behavior | Required fields |
| - | - | - |
| `consecutive_failures` | Opens an incident after N consecutive failed checks | `count` |
| `failures_in_window` | Opens an incident after N failures within a time window | `count`, `windowMinutes` |
| `response_time` | Opens an incident when response time exceeds a threshold | `thresholdMs`, `aggregationType` |
### Scope
Each rule has a scope that determines how regions are evaluated:
| Scope | Behavior |
| - | - |
| `per_region` | Each region is evaluated independently — the rule must be satisfied in a single region |
| `any_region` | Failures are aggregated across all regions |
### Severity
Each rule targets a severity level. When multiple rules fire, the highest severity wins:
| Severity | Priority |
| - | - |
| `down` | Highest — complete failure |
| `degraded` | Lower — partial failure or performance issue |
### Response time aggregation
For `response_time` rules, the `aggregationType` field controls how latency is evaluated across checks:
| Aggregation | Behavior |
| - | - |
| `all_exceed` | Every check in the evaluation window must exceed the threshold |
| `average` | The average response time exceeds the threshold |
| `p95` | The 95th percentile exceeds the threshold |
| `max` | The maximum response time exceeds the threshold |
### Default policy
When you create a monitor without specifying a policy, DevHelm applies a sensible default:
* **Trigger:** 2 consecutive failures per region → severity `down`
* **Confirmation:** Multi-region, 1 region failing, wait up to `max(60, frequency × 2)` seconds
* **Recovery:** 2 consecutive successes, 2 regions passing, 5-minute cooldown
### Example
A policy with two trigger rules — one for complete failures and one for performance degradation:
```json theme={null}
{
"triggerRules": [
{
"type": "consecutive_failures",
"count": 3,
"scope": "per_region",
"severity": "down"
},
{
"type": "response_time",
"thresholdMs": 5000,
"aggregationType": "p95",
"scope": "any_region",
"severity": "degraded"
}
],
"confirmation": {
"type": "multi_region",
"minRegionsFailing": 2,
"maxWaitSeconds": 120
},
"recovery": {
"consecutiveSuccesses": 3,
"minRegionsPassing": 2,
"cooldownMinutes": 10
}
}
```
## Confirmation
Confirmation prevents false positives by requiring failures from multiple probe regions before promoting an incident to `CONFIRMED` status.
| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `type` | string | Confirmation strategy — currently `multi_region` |
| `minRegionsFailing` | integer | Minimum regions that must be failing to confirm |
| `maxWaitSeconds` | integer | Maximum seconds to wait for enough regions to report failures |
When a trigger rule fires in one region, the confirmation policy waits up to `maxWaitSeconds` for at least `minRegionsFailing` regions to also report failures. If enough regions confirm within the window, the incident moves to `CONFIRMED` and alerts fire. If the window expires without enough regions failing, the incident is discarded.
Set `minRegionsFailing` to `1` to confirm on the first region that reports a failure. This is useful for monitors running from a single region.
## Recovery
Recovery controls when a confirmed incident auto-resolves.
| Field | Type | Description |
| - | - | - |
| `consecutiveSuccesses` | integer | Number of consecutive passing checks required before resolving |
| `minRegionsPassing` | integer | Minimum regions that must be healthy before recovery completes |
| `cooldownMinutes` | integer | Minutes after resolution before a new incident can open (0–60) |
The recovery policy ensures stability before closing an incident. After the required consecutive successes are observed across enough regions, the incident moves to `RESOLVED`. The cooldown period then suppresses new incidents for the same monitor, preventing flapping.
## Managing policies
### View a monitor's policy
Policies are read via the API:
```bash API theme={null}
curl https://api.devhelm.io/api/v1/monitors//policy \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $DEVHELM_API_TOKEN"
```
### Update a policy
Update a policy via the API, or declare it in `devhelm.yml` under the monitor's `incidentPolicy:` block:
```yaml devhelm.yml theme={null}
monitors:
- name: API Health
type: HTTP
config:
url: https://api.example.com/health
method: GET
incidentPolicy:
triggerRules:
- type: consecutive_failures
count: 3
scope: per_region
severity: down
confirmation:
type: multi_region
minRegionsFailing: 2
maxWaitSeconds: 120
recovery:
consecutiveSuccesses: 3
minRegionsPassing: 2
cooldownMinutes: 10
```
```bash API theme={null}
curl -X PUT https://api.devhelm.io/api/v1/monitors//policy \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $DEVHELM_API_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"triggerRules": [{
"type": "consecutive_failures",
"count": 3,
"scope": "per_region",
"severity": "down"
}],
"confirmation": {
"type": "multi_region",
"minRegionsFailing": 2,
"maxWaitSeconds": 120
},
"recovery": {
"consecutiveSuccesses": 3,
"minRegionsPassing": 2,
"cooldownMinutes": 10
}
}'
```
## Next steps
Understand the full incident lifecycle and statuses.
Learn how multi-region checks interact with confirmation policies.
Configure notifications for confirmed incidents.
Suppress incidents during planned downtime.
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