1. Create a Slack App and Incoming Webhook

PingKit delivers alerts through Slack's Incoming Webhooks API. You'll create a Slack app, generate a webhook URL, and paste it into your PingKit dashboard.

Go to api.slack.com/apps, click Create New App, and choose From scratch. Name it something like PingKit Alerts and select your workspace. Navigate to Incoming Webhooks in the sidebar, toggle the feature on, and click Add New Webhook to Workspace. Authorize the app for your workspace — you'll see a URL that looks like https://hooks.slack.com/services/T02AB3CD/BX9Y8Z7W/abc123def456. Copy it, then head to Settings → Integrations → Slack in your PingKit dashboard and paste the webhook URL into the webhook_url field. Click Test Connection; a verification message will appear in your chosen channel within 3 seconds.

2. Route Alerts to Specific Channels

By default, every webhook posts to the channel you selected during setup. You can override the destination per-check or per-group using the #channel-name suffix in the webhook URL or the channel field in the PingKit UI.

When you added the webhook, Slack asked which channel to post to — for example, #critical-incidents while staging checks go to #staging-monitoring, create separate PingKit Slack integration profiles, each with its own webhook URL targeting the appropriate channel.

1. Create a Slack App and Incoming Webhook

PingKit delivers alerts through Slack's Incoming Webhooks API. You'll create a Slack app, generate a webhook URL, and paste it into your PingKit dashboard.

Go to api.slack.com/apps, click Create New App, and choose From scratch. Name it something like PingKit Alerts and select your workspace. Navigate to Incoming Webhooks in the sidebar, toggle the feature on, and click Add New Webhook to Workspace. Authorize the app for your workspace — you'll see a URL that looks like https://hooks.slack.com/services/T02AB3CD/BX9Y8Z7W/abc123def456. Copy it, then head to Settings → Integrations → Slack in your PingKit dashboard and paste the webhook URL into the webhook_url field. Click Test Connection; a verification message will appear in your chosen channel within 3 seconds.

2. Route Alerts to Specific Channels

By default, every webhook posts to the channel you selected during setup. You can override the destination per-check or per-group using the #channel-name suffix in the webhook URL or the channel field in the PingKit UI.

When you added the webhook, Slack asked which channel to post to — for example, #ops-alerts. That becomes the default. To send critical production alerts to #critical-incidents while staging checks go to #staging-monitoring, create separate PingKit Slack integration profiles, each with its own webhook URL targeting the appropriate channel.

3. Alert Message Format and Examples

PingKit sends structured Slack messages using blocks and attachments. Each alert includes the check name, status, response time, timestamp, and a direct link to the check dashboard.

You can customize the message template in Settings → Integrations → Slack → Message Template. Available variables: {{check_name}}, {{status}}, {{response_time_ms}}, {{downtime_duration}}, {{url}}, {{timestamp}}.

Custom Template Example

Use this template for compact, actionable alerts:

{{status_icon}} {{check_name}} — {{status}} | RT: {{response_time_ms}}ms | {{url}} | {{timestamp}}

For severity-based mentions, add @channel to critical alerts and @here to degraded ones in the template editor. PingKit evaluates the {{severity}} variable and interpolates the mention accordingly.