Quick start

From an empty install to your first endpoint, alert channel and metric source in about ten minutes.

This page takes you from a fresh install to a working setup: one endpoint checked every 30 seconds, alerts in Slack (or email), and, if you have them, your metrics and logs next to it. Pulsimo must already be running; if not, start with Installation.

1. Sign in#

Open http://<HOST_IP>:3000, click Register and create your organization and the first administrator. Every later account is added by an administrator from Users.

2. Add an alert channel#

Do this first, so the first outage already reaches someone.

  1. Open Alerting in the sidebar and click Add channel.

  2. Pick the platform. Each tile lists the steps to get its webhook:

    Platform You enter
    Slack An Incoming Webhook URL
    Discord The channel webhook URL
    Microsoft Teams The URL from a Teams workflow or connector
    Google Chat The space webhook URL
    Email One or more addresses (needs the SMTP settings in .env)
    Webhook Any URL, with method and headers

  3. Give it a name people recognize, keep Severity on Everything for now, and leave Send a test after saving on.

  4. Save. The result of the test shows on the channel card: Test delivered in 0.8 s, or the platform's error.

More in Channels and delivery.

3. Add your first endpoint#

  1. Open Services → Endpoints and click Add endpoint.

  2. Fill in:

    Field Example
    Name Website
    Service type Frontend
    URL https://example.com
    Check interval 30 seconds

  3. Save. The first check runs straight away.

Databases, Redis, Elasticsearch, gRPC and WebSocket services are added the same way with their own address; see Endpoints and checks.

4. Watch it#

Services → Overview is the live status board. It refreshes every 30 seconds and shows each endpoint's last 24 hours as 48 half-hour bars, its uptime and p95 response time.

To see an alert end to end, add an endpoint that fails, for example https://example.com/this-page-does-not-exist. After its alert policy's failures, the channel gets "… is down", an incident opens on Incidents, and when you delete or fix the endpoint the channel gets Resolved.

5. Bring in metrics (optional)#

If your apps or servers already expose Prometheus metrics (an app's /metrics, node_exporter, cAdvisor, postgres_exporter…):

  1. Metrics → Sources → Add source, enter the URL, e.g. http://10.0.1.12:9100/metrics.
  2. Test connection, then Save. Collection starts at once.
  3. Connect on the source links its routes or database to your endpoints, so their metrics, dashboards and change markers show next to the checks.

See Metric sources and Connected monitoring.

6. Bring in logs (optional)#

Logs → Sources → Add source gives you a ready-made Fluent Bit configuration (or a docker run command) with its own plog_ token. Once lines arrive, search them in the Log Browser and link them to an endpoint, so errors in the logs can open incidents by themselves. See Logs and the step-by-step Logs end to end.

7. Add your servers (optional)#

Infrastructure → Add hosts gives one command for a new server, or connects exporters and a Prometheus you already run. Kubernetes clusters connect with one kubectl apply. See Hosts and containers and Kubernetes.

Where next#