Message templates

A template is a saved title and body for the incidents you write more than once. Monitor rules use them to open incidents automatically; you can also pick one when reporting by hand and edit from there.

Create a template

Templates belong to a workspace and have a kind, incident or maintenance, a name for the picker, an optional title template and a body template. Both support Markdown and the variables below.

Title:  {{component}} is unavailable
Body:   Our monitoring detected a problem with {{component}}.
        We are investigating and will post an update within 30 minutes.

Variables

{{component}}string

The affected component's name. From a monitor rule, this is the component the rule points at.

{{components}}string

All affected component names, comma separated.

{{page}}string

The status page's name.

{{title}}string

From a monitor rule, the monitor's name.

{{eta}}string

An estimated time, when the caller supplies one.

Unknown variables are left as typed, so a typo shows up in the preview rather than disappearing.

Preview

The dashboard renders a preview with sample values as you type. Through the API, POST /user/message_templates/:id/render takes a vars object and returns the substituted title and body.

Where templates are used

• Monitor rules. A rule with auto_incident set to draft or publish uses the template you attach; without one, a plain default wording is used.
• Reporting by hand. Pick a template in the Report incident drawer to prefill the title and first update, then adjust.

Good templates

• Say what customers experience, not the component's internal name.
• Promise a next update time. “Within 30 minutes” is a commitment you can keep and a reason for people not to email.
• Keep the automated ones short. A person will add detail once they are awake.

API

Templates are CRUD on /user/message_templates. See Message templates in the API reference.