1.1What is obsrvly
obsrvly watches your websites, APIs, servers and scheduled jobs. It runs checks on a schedule. When a check keeps failing, it alerts your team.
You work with monitors. A monitor watches one thing, such as a web address, a server port or a certificate. You choose how often it runs and which regions it runs from. You also choose what a healthy result looks like.
What you can monitor#
When you create a monitor, you pick one of these types.
| Type | What it watches |
|---|---|
url | A web address. obsrvly sends a request on a schedule and checks the reply. |
api | A single API request, with a richer request body and checks on values in a JSON reply. JSON is a common text format for data. |
api-multistep | A chain of API requests in a set order. Later requests can use values and cookies from earlier ones. |
browser | A scripted journey in a real browser, such as open a page, fill in a form and click. Scripts can use saved secrets. |
heartbeat | A scheduled job that sends a signal (a ping) to obsrvly when it runs. A missing ping follows your alert policy. |
dns | A DNS record. DNS is the system that turns names into addresses. obsrvly looks up the record and compares it to the values you expect. |
cert | A TLS certificate, the file that makes https secure. obsrvly counts down the days until it expires. |
domain | The date your domain name registration runs out. |
tcp | A server port. obsrvly opens a connection to host:port and measures the connect time. |
udp | A UDP service. obsrvly sends a message to host:port and expects a reply. |
ping | A server. obsrvly sends ping requests to a host and times the answers. |
grpc | A gRPC server. obsrvly asks its health service whether it is serving. |
websocket | A WebSocket endpoint. obsrvly opens a connection and can check the first message. |
Where alerts go#
An alert channel is a place obsrvly sends alerts. You can use these channels:
- Email — delivered to one inbox.
- Slack, Microsoft Teams and Discord — posted to a channel through a webhook. A webhook is a web address that accepts messages.
- Telegram — sent by a bot to a chat.
- PagerDuty — pages whoever is on call.
- Webhook — sent as a request to your own system. If you set a signing secret, each request is signed, so you can check it came from obsrvly (chapter 11).
How you work with obsrvly#
- The dashboard. Create and manage monitors, read results, set up alerts, maintenance windows and a status page.
- The API. A script with an API key can do most of what the dashboard does. An API key is a secret code that starts with
obs_. Chapter 13 covers the API and the few things a key cannot do. - Discovery. Enter your site's address and obsrvly suggests monitors for it. See 1.4.
About this guide#
Chapters 2 to 8 cover monitors, monitor settings, assertions, heartbeats, DNS and mail checks, browser monitors and secrets. Chapters 9 to 12 cover alerting, alert channels, webhooks and status pages. Chapters 13 to 15 cover the API, account and team, and security and data.
Conventions in this guide:
- Dashboard labels appear in bold, as the dashboard shows them, for example + new monitor. Many labels are lowercase.
- An arrow shows a path through the menus. For example, alerting → channels means select alerting, then channels.
- Values you type, messages and API field names appear in
code. - Text in angle brackets, such as
<channel-id>, is a placeholder. Replace it with your own value. - Technical terms are defined in the glossary (1.5).