Monitor Not Triggering

What You See

You set up a monitor with a condition like "alert when count > 3" but you never receive a notification in Slack, even though you believe the condition should be triggered.

Quick Fix

Run the skill manually and check the result. Type the slash command in Slack:

/alice churn-risk

Look at the results. Does the field you are monitoring (count, value, etc.) actually meet the condition? If the result shows count: 2 and your condition is count > 3, the monitor is correctly not triggering.

Detailed Diagnosis

1. Verify the Condition

The most common issue is a mismatch between what you expect and what the data shows:

1. Go to Dashboard > Skills and open the skill
2. Click Edit and go to the Trigger step
3. Review the monitor condition: field, operator, and value
4. Run the query in the Test panel and check if the result field actually meets the condition

Common mistakes:

• Using the wrong field name (e.g., total instead of count)
• Using > when you meant >= (off-by-one)
• Comparing against a string when the field returns a number

2. Check the Cooldown Period

Monitors have a cooldown (default: 60 minutes) that prevents notification spam. If the condition was met and an alert was sent, the monitor will not send another alert until the cooldown period expires.

• Check Dashboard > Logs and filter by trigger type "monitor"
• If you see a recent successful alert, the cooldown is suppressing subsequent alerts
• To adjust, edit the skill and change the cooldown value in the Trigger step

3. Verify the Monitor Is Active

1. Go to Dashboard > Skills and find the skill
2. Look at the Triggers section
3. Verify the Monitor trigger shows as Active
4. If it shows Paused, toggle it back on

4. Check Channel Membership

Like scheduled reports, alice must be a member of the alert notification channel:

/invite @alice

5. Check Your Plan

If you have reached your plan's monitor limit, additional monitors are saved but paused. Upgrade to enable more.

6. Check the Poll Interval

Monitors do not check continuously -- they poll at the interval you set (e.g., every 15 minutes). If your condition was only briefly true and the monitor did not poll during that window, the alert will not fire.

• Check the poll interval in the skill's Trigger step
• For critical alerts, use a shorter interval (5 minutes)
• Keep in mind that each poll counts as a query execution toward your plan limits

7. Source Issues

If the underlying source has disconnected or the credentials have expired, monitor polls will fail silently:

• Go to Dashboard > Sources and check the status
• Go to Dashboard > Logs and filter for the skill -- look for SOURCE_AUTH_EXPIRED errors

Understanding Monitor Behavior

Still Stuck?

Email support@alicehasnoidea.com with the skill name, the monitor condition, and a screenshot of the Test panel results showing the field value you are monitoring.