Observability Alert Router
Design routing rules that send operational alerts to the correct on-call team while controlling noise and fallback behavior.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
Alerts may be routed by service, environment, severity, region, or ownership tag. Overlapping rules can page several teams, while a missing owner can leave a critical signal without acknowledgement.
User context
Platform engineer Luis is onboarding a new search service. Critical production alerts should page its team, data-quality warnings should create tickets, and any unowned alert must reach the central operations fallback.
Product problem
Administrators need to understand rule precedence, predicted destinations, schedules, and failure behavior before activating routing changes.
Objective
Create rule building, sample-event testing, conflict resolution, and live delivery monitoring for alert routing.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Define conditions and destinations
- Test representative alerts against the ruleset
- Resolve overlap, gaps, and schedule coverage
- Publish the rules and monitor delivery acknowledgement
Screens and states
- Routing rule builder
- Sample alert simulator
- Conflict and coverage review
- Delivery monitor
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Luis creates production-critical and warning routes
- 02
He tests sample alerts from three environments
- 03
The review reveals that one regional service matches two paging rules
- 04
He fixes precedence, publishes, and confirms a real test alert is acknowledged
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Display rule order, conditions, destination, schedule, and fallback
- Simulate matches without sending live notifications
- Detect unmatched and multiply matched samples
- Track delivery, acknowledgement, escalation, and exhausted fallback states
Constraints
- Publishing production routes requires elevated permission
- Disabled destinations cannot receive new routes
- Changes need version history and rollback
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four desktop screens with conflict and failed-delivery states
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.