> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.monk.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Watcher and alerts

> Get Slack alerts with a diagnosis when workloads crash or run short of resources

Watcher runs on your cluster and watches for crashes, failing health checks and high CPU, memory or disk use. When something trips, it writes a diagnosis and can send it to Slack.

Watcher is separate from recovery. The orchestrator already restarts and reschedules managed workloads within its policies. Watcher tells you what happened and why. Any fix it proposes needs your approval.

## Before you start

* Your app is deployed to a cluster. See [Deploy an existing app](/guides/deploy-existing-app).
* For Slack alerts, a Slack workspace where you can add an app to a channel.

## Ask Monk

```
/monk set up watcher on this cluster
```

The defaults suit most clusters. Change them in your request if you need to:

```
/monk set up watcher and alert when CPU stays over 85% for 10 minutes
```

## What you review

1. **Slack.** If you want Slack alerts and Monk has no Slack connection yet, it asks you to authorize Slack and pick a channel. The webhook is stored like any other credential. You can also enter an incoming webhook URL by hand in the [local dashboard](/getting-started/local-dashboard). Without Slack, Watcher still runs. You just don't get notifications.
2. **The plan.** It shows the thresholds, where Watcher runs and the tokens it creates for itself. Nothing is deployed until you approve.

## Default thresholds

| Check | Alerts when |
| - | - |
| Crashes | A container restarts 3 times within 5 minutes |
| Health checks | 3 checks in a row fail |
| Node CPU / memory / disk | Over 70% / 80% / 85% |
| Workload CPU / memory / disk | Over 70% / 80% / 90% |

CPU and memory alerts fire when usage stays above the threshold for 5 minutes.

## What you get

Slack messages with what happened, the log lines around it and a written diagnosis. By default only these AI-written alerts go to Slack.

To act on an alert, open your coding agent and ask Monk about it:

```
/monk watcher says the worker ran out of memory, what should I change?
```

Any change follows the usual plan and approval. Slack is for notifications only. You can't chat with Monk or approve anything from Slack.

## Check or remove Watcher

```
/monk is watcher running on this cluster?
/monk remove watcher from this cluster
```

Removing Watcher opens an approval.

## Next

* [Logs and debugging](/guides/logs-and-debugging)
* [Watcher and recovery](/concepts/watcher-and-recovery)


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