How Custom Events in PagerDuty Create Tailored Alerts Based on Defined Conditions

Custom Events in PagerDuty: Targeted alerts that actually matter

If your team wrestles with alert fatigue, you’re not alone. The flood of notifications can drown out the truly urgent signals. That’s where Custom Events come in. They aren’t just another checkbox in PagerDuty; they’re a way to craft alerts that reflect your unique systems, so you only get pinged when something meaningful happens.

What are Custom Events, exactly?

Let’s start with the big idea. Custom Events let you generate alerts based on defined conditions rather than sending the same warning to everyone. Think of it as rules-based notification, tuned to your architecture. You specify what metrics or signals should trigger a notification, who should be notified, and under what circumstances. The result is context-rich alerts that arrive in the right channel, with the right severity, at the moment something important occurs.

Why this matters for incident response

• Less noise, more signal. When alerts are narrowly scoped to conditions you care about, you get fewer interruptions for the stuff you don’t act on. That means faster triage for the real problems.

• Better context, faster decisions. Custom Events can include details about what triggered the alert, the affected service, and relevant metadata. That extra context cuts down the back-and-forth during an investigation.

• Scales with your system. As your environment grows or shifts—new services, new metrics—you can adjust the rules without overhauling your entire alerting setup.

How Custom Events work in PagerDuty (the practical bits)

PagerDuty supports Custom Events by letting you publish signals that map to alerts in your incident response workflow. Here’s the gist, without getting lost in the techy jargon:

• Define the signal. You decide what data constitutes a meaningful event. It could be a metric crossing a threshold, a specific error pattern, or a combination of factors like error rate and latency.

• Route with purpose. Each event is tied to a service and an escalation path. That means the right people get notified, and only when the defined conditions hold true.

• Control severity and timing. You set how urgent the alert is and when it fires. You can also layer in delays or deduplication to prevent alert storms.

• Enrich the notice. The alert message can carry helpful details—what to check, where to look, and any links or runbooks that speed up remediation.

A few real-world scenarios

• Microservice fragility. Suppose you run a microservice with several dependent components. A Custom Event could trigger only when the combined error rate of that service spikes beyond a safe threshold, and only if latency is also creeping up. That way you don’t wake the team for a single transient hiccup.

• Certificate or credential watchers. If a TLS certificate in your stack is nearing expiry, a Custom Event can alert the on-call folks with the exact expiration date and renewal steps. It’s proactive without flooding the system with every minor warning.

• Deployment-approved incidents. After a release, you might want to watch for a regression in a critical API’s error rate. A tailored event can fire only if that API shows a sustained anomaly, not for every blip in traffic.

• Environment-specific signals. Different environments (dev, staging, production) often require different sensitivity. Custom Events let you tailor alerts so production remains pristine while development prompts stay in the loop.

How to set them up (a straightforward path)

If you’re exploring Custom Events, here’s a practical, no-nonsense path:

• Start with a concrete use case. Pick a scenario where a generic alert feels noisy or misses the mark. Write down the exact conditions that should trigger a notification.

• Map to a service. Tie the event to the service or component that owns the responsibility. This ensures the escalation chain makes sense to the people who can fix things.

• Define the alert payload. Include essential context—service name, host, region, error type, links to runbooks. The fewer steps the responder has to take, the faster the fix.

• Set severity and timing. Decide when a response is warranted and how quickly. Consider whether you need suppression rules after the first alert or a lingering delay to catch a trend.

• Test and iterate. Try a dry run or a staged trigger to confirm the right folks are notified and the message lands where it should. Then refine the rules based on feedback.

Common missteps to avoid

• Overcomplicating rules. If the condition is too intricate, you’ll end up with flaky alerts and more questions than answers. Aim for clarity first.

• Missing context. A great alert is only as helpful as the information it carries. Include actionable details and a path to remediation.

• Forgetting to connect to the right team. A well-crafted rule is useless if it routes to the wrong on-call group. Always verify ownership and escalation policies.

• Ignoring feedback. The best alerts evolve. If responders consistently skip or ignore a Custom Event, it’s a sign to tweak the logic or content.

Custom Events vs standard alerts: where the line is drawn

• Standard notifications are great for broad, generic alerts that almost anyone should notice. They’re simple, reliable, and easy to maintain.

• Custom Events shine when you need precision. They let you define signals that matter to your specific setup, reducing noise and amplifying relevance.

Think of it like filtering emails. A generic alert is like a mailbox with hundreds of messages—many are unimportant. A Custom Event is a smart filter rule that only surfaces messages from senders you trust and topics you care about.

Tips to maximize impact

• Start small, scale thoughtfully. Begin with one or two well-chosen rules and expand as you prove value.

• Use human-readable names. Clear titles and descriptions help on-call players understand the problem at a glance.

• Lean on runbooks. Link to documented remediation steps so responders don’t have to search for guidance in real time.

• Pair with metrics that matter. Tie events to metrics you actually monitor—error rate, latency, queue depth—and you’ll keep the signal-to-noise ratio favorable.

• Audit and refine regularly. Incidents evolve; your alert rules should too. Schedule periodic reviews to prune outdated conditions and add new ones.

A quick mental model

Imagine your alerting setup is a smart home security system. Standard alerts are like door alerts that ring whenever a door opens. Custom Events are the more nuanced check—the system notices when a window sensor detects motion during a specific time window and the living room camera is on. The result isn’t more alarms; it’s alarms that help you decide what to do right now.

Closing thoughts: the value sits in the details

Custom Events aren’t a flashy feature for bragging rights. They’re a practical way to make incident signals fit your reality. When an alert arrives with immediately relevant context, you don’t waste time guessing what to do. You go straight to the culprit, coordinate the right people, and move toward resolution.

If you’re building out a more resilient incident response workflow, consider how you can blend Custom Events with the rest of PagerDuty’s toolkit. Use them to filter the noise, then complement them with robust runbooks, clear escalation paths, and a culture of continuous improvement. The payoff isn’t just faster recovery; it’s a calmer, more confident team that can bounce back from incidents with less disruption.

In the end, the heart of the matter is simple: tailor alerts to your world. Let the system tell you when something truly matters, and let your people answer with clarity and purpose. Custom Events make that possible, turning scattered signals into a coherent, actionable picture. If you’re curious about how this could look for your stack, try drafting a couple of focused rules and see where they take you. You might be surprised by how much friction a well-placed, well-timed alert can remove from your day.