Uptime Monitoring Basics: From First Check to Confident Coverage
Set up core uptime checks, alert policies, and status hygiene in one afternoon.
By Alex KimHead of Reliability•Published November 15, 2025•6 min read
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.
Article stats
- Author: Alex Kim
- Role: Head of Reliability
- Published: November 15, 2025
- Reading time: 6 min
Tags
#uptime monitoring#http monitors#alerting#watchdog
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