--- title: Manage alert rules via the API description: If you create monitors through the API, having to open the dashboard to adjust their alert rules breaks the automation. The REST API can now list, create… canonical: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-08-24-alert-rules-api --- [All updates](/changelog/page/6#2026-08-24-alert-rules-api) ✨ New Aug 24, 2026 · v 5.6.7 # Manage alert rules via the API If you create monitors through the API, having to open the dashboard to adjust their alert rules breaks the automation. The REST API can now list, create, update, enable/disable and delete a monitor's alert rules — the conditions that open an incident (response time, status code, keyword match, SSL expiry and more). Changes take effect instantly, exactly as they do from the dashboard. System default rules can be tuned but not deleted. ## What you can do - List a monitor's rules, including the defaults it was created with. - Create a rule on any metric the monitor's type supports: response time, status code, keyword match, days until the certificate expires and more. - Update a threshold, a severity or a confirmation count, or switch a rule off and on with enabled . - Delete the rules you added. Default rules can be tuned and disabled, but not deleted. Every change is checked the same way the dashboard checks it. A wrong metric name comes back as a 400 that lists the valid metrics for that monitor type, so a script or an agent can correct itself. ## An example Your deploy pipeline creates a monitor for every new preview environment. In the same script it can now add a warning for responses slower than two seconds: curl -X POST https://watchfor.io/api/v1/monitors//alert-rules \ -H "Authorization: Bearer wf_live_…" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"name":"Slow response","metric":"response_time","operator":">","value":"2000","severity":"warning","failureThreshold":3}' The rule is live as soon as the call returns. Sending {"enabled": false} later switches it off and resolves any incident it left open. Fields, operators and validation: [Alert rules API](/docs/api/alert-rules). Share this update --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-08-24-alert-rules-api · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt