# Raise an alert

`POST https://evohub.io/api/v1/alerts`

Part of the [On-Call API](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/oncall.md) reference · operationId `createAlert`.

Raises an alert by hand and starts its escalation, exactly as an alert from an
integration would: people are paged and notifications are billed.

`fingerprint` deduplicates: when an open alert in the organization already
carries it, no new alert is created — the existing one is counted as a
retrigger and returned. `team_id` defaults to the caller's first team.
To send alerts from a monitoring tool, use an integration instead
(see the Alert ingest API reference).

**Permission (API-key scope):** `oncall:alert:write`.

## Authorization

Any one of:

- `bearerAuth` (oncall:alert:write)
- `apiKeyHeader` (oncall:alert:write)

Where:

- `bearerAuth`: HTTP Bearer — An EvoHub API key (`evohub_…`) as a bearer token.
- `apiKeyHeader`: API key in the header `X-API-Key` — An EvoHub API key (`evohub_…`).

## Request body (required)

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `AlertCreate`

- `title` (string, required)
- `severity` (AlertSeverity, required, one of `critical`, `high`, `medium`, `low`, `info`)
- `description` (string)
- `source` (string, default `manual`): Defaults to `manual`.
- `fingerprint` (string): Deduplication key; a random one when omitted.
- `escalation_policy_id` (string): The policy that pages for it.
- `team_id` (string): Defaults to the caller's first team.
- `labels` (object)
  - Other keys: string
- `annotations` (object)
  - Other keys: string

## Responses

### 201 — The alert that was created, or the open alert with the same fingerprint.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `object`

- `data` (Alert, required)
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `org_id` (string, required)
  - `team_id` (string): Owning team; empty for an organization-wide alert.
  - `escalation_policy_id` (string): Empty when no policy pages for it.
  - `incident_id` (string)
  - `integration_id` (string): The integration that opened it; empty for alerts raised by hand or by another EvoHub product.
  - `fingerprint` (string): Deduplication key: while an alert with it is open, the same fingerprint retriggers it instead of opening another.
  - `title` (string, required)
  - `description` (string)
  - `severity` (AlertSeverity, required, one of `critical`, `high`, `medium`, `low`, `info`)
  - `status` (AlertStatus, required, one of `triggered`, `acknowledged`, `resolved`, `suppressed`)
  - `source` (string, required): Where it came from: an integration kind such as `prometheus`, `api`, `webhook`, or `manual`.
  - `labels` (object)
    - Other keys: string
  - `annotations` (object)
    - Other keys: string
  - `current_escalation_step` (integer): The escalation step reached so far.
  - `acknowledged_by` (string)
  - `acknowledged_at` (string (date-time))
  - `resolved_by` (string)
  - `resolved_at` (string (date-time))
  - `snoozed_until` (string (date-time))
  - `snoozed_by` (string)
  - `assigned_to` (string): User id of the assignee; empty when unassigned.
  - `notification_count` (integer)
  - `retrigger_count` (integer): How many times the same fingerprint arrived again while it was open.
  - `created_at` (string (date-time), required)
  - `updated_at` (string (date-time), required)
- `success` (boolean, required, value `true`)

### 400 — The body is not JSON (`INVALID_BODY`); `title` or `severity` is missing, or `escalation_policy_id` names no policy of the organization (`VALIDATION_FAILED`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `ValidationError`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required, value `VALIDATION_FAILED`)
  - `message` (string, required)
  - `details` (array of object, required)
    - `field` (string)
    - `message` (string)

### 401 — No API key was sent, or it is unknown, revoked or expired (`UNAUTHORIZED`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 403 — The key lacks the scope this endpoint needs (`FORBIDDEN`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 429 — Too many requests (`RATE_LIMITED`). Wait `Retry-After` seconds.

Headers:

- `Retry-After` (integer): Seconds to wait.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 500 — Something went wrong on EvoHub's side (`INTERNAL_ERROR`). Retry later.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

## Example request

```bash
curl -X POST 'https://evohub.io/api/v1/alerts' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <TOKEN>' \
  -d '{
  "title": "Checkout error budget exhausted",
  "labels": {
    "service": "checkout"
  },
  "severity": "high",
  "description": "Raised from the deploy pipeline",
  "fingerprint": "checkout-error-budget",
  "escalation_policy_id": "3f8a0b2c-4d6e-4f8a-b1c3-d5e7f9a1b3c5"
}'
```