Define your baseline
Pick the services customers actually touch first and map them to HTTP, ping, and heartbeat monitors.
Keep intervals fast enough to catch issues without causing noise; start with 30-second probes in four regions.
Minimal starter pack
- Homepage HTTPS check
- Primary API latency check with status code gate
- Background job heartbeat with 2 minute grace
Wire alerts before dashboards
Route alerts by customer impact, not component names.
Use Slack plus SMS for high severity and email only for lower tiers.
A good rule: two alert channels per critical monitor.
Publish trust signals
Create a status page early so customers expect transparency.
Include uptime SLIs and a short incident template to speed response.