The main concept in Balerter is Alert.
Alert can be thought of as some object, which has the property: level. The level can have one of three values: Error, Warning to Success.
The level can be changed, but there can not be Alert with an undefined level. After creating an Alert, it has the Success level.
The moment of level change is a trigger for sending a notification.
An example. We have a script, that runs 1 times per minute.
alert = require('alert')
alert.error('alert-id-1', 'Something went wrong')
After start of Balerter all Alerts have the Success status. On first run this script, command alert.error('alert-id-1', ...) set Error level for the Alert with id alert-id-1.
Since we have changed the level, you will receive a notification.
After minute a script will be run again and again will set the Error level for the Alert. But because the Alert already has the Error level, a notification will not be sent.
It will be repeated until the Alert level changed.
After run alert.success('alert-id-1', ...) (or alert.warning) in your script, the Alert level will be changed and you will receive a notification.
An example:
-- @interval 1m
alert = require('alert')
-- After first run this script an Alert has the 'Success' level.
-- And after by calling1 `alert.error` you change the level to `Error` and receive a notification
alert.error('alert-id-1', 'message text')
-- after previous `alert.error` the level already has level `Error` and notification will not be sent
-- we just confirmed the `Error` level
alert.error('alert-id-1', 'message text')
-- we change the level to `Success` and get a notification
alert.success('alert-id-1', 'message text')
-- before exit from the script our Alert has the `Success` level
-- since the next run we call `alert.error`, set the `Error` level, get a notification and the history will be repeated
Important! Calling alert.error does not send a notification. It changes the level value.
A notification send when the level changes.