9.9Muting, pausing and maintenance
There are three ways to stop alerts for a while:
- Mute: the monitor keeps running, but its down alert is held. You can mute for a set time or until you unmute.
- Pause: the monitor stops running. No checks run and no data is collected.
- Maintenance window: a planned time when monitors keep running, but nothing alerts and checks do not count against uptime.
| Checks run | Incident opens | Alert sent | Resolved message | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mute | Yes | Yes | Held. Sent if still down when the mute ends | Yes, with a note |
| Pause | No | No new ones | — | — |
| Maintenance | Yes | Yes | Held. Sent if still down when the window ends | Not if it recovers inside the window |
Chapter 3 shows how to pause (3.3), mute (3.4) and schedule maintenance (3.5).
What happens to alerts#
- If the monitor is still down when you unmute, the held alert is sent. When a timed mute ends, it is sent at the next failed check.
- If the monitor is still down when a maintenance window ends, the held alert is sent at the next failed check.
- Reminders that fall in a mute or a maintenance window are dropped. They are not sent later.
Through the API#
Use UpdateMonitor to mute or pause:
| To | Send |
|---|---|
| Mute until you unmute | "muted": true, "clearMuteUntil": true |
| Mute until a time | "muted": true, "muteUntil": "2026-11-02T18:00:00Z" |
| Unmute | "muted": false |
| Keep a timed mute until you unmute | "clearMuteUntil": true |
| Pause / resume | "activated": false / "activated": true |
Use CreateMaintenanceWindow, ListMaintenanceWindows and DeleteMaintenanceWindow for windows. An empty monitorIds list means all monitors.
curl -s "$API/monitor/obsrvly.v1.MonitorConfigService/CreateMaintenanceWindow" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OBSRVLY_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name": "database upgrade",
"startsAt": "2026-11-02T22:00:00Z",
"endsAt": "2026-11-02T23:00:00Z",
"monitorIds": []}'