Alert with Multi-Window Burn Rate
Check the error budget burn rate over both 1h and 5m windows so a fast burn pages immediately and a slow burn notifies within an hour.
Task
Instrument alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) so on-call engineers can diagnose an incident without guessing at log lines.
When to use this
An outage lasts 47 minutes because the team cannot correlate alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) across services without structured traces.
Prerequisites
- An application with structured logging available
- A metrics or tracing backend configured
Steps
1. Configure alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) in the project configuration file with the recommended defaults.
alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6)
Expected output: The configuration is accepted and alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) runs without errors on the first invocation.
2. Run the check locally to verify alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) produces the expected result before pushing.
act -j build # or: pnpm test
Expected output: Local run matches CI behavior; no surprises after push.
3. Add the gate to the CI pipeline so alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) blocks merge on failure.
- name: Run add alert multi window burn
run: pnpm test
Expected output: Pull requests with failing alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) are blocked from merging.
Troubleshooting
Problem
The check passes locally but fails in CI
Solution
Pin dependency versions and the runtime to match CI exactly; reproduce with the same Docker image or act.
Problem
Configuration is rejected with a schema error
Solution
Check the tool version matches the config schema; older versions may not support newer fields.
Limitations
- The gate only runs on events that trigger the workflow; locally pushed commits bypass it.
- Configuration drift is possible if someone edits settings outside version control.
Make the system observable
Start by measuring the problem. Check the error budget burn rate over both 1h and 5m windows so a fast burn pages immediately and a slow burn notifies within an hour. The most common mistake is adding the gate without first confirming it catches the issue you care about. Run alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) against the current codebase and inspect the output before wiring it into CI.
alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6)Correlate across services
Once the gate is in place, make failures actionable. A failing alert if (burn_1h > 14.4 && burn_5m > 14.4) or (burn_6h > 6 && burn_30m > 6) should point to the exact file and line, not a generic error. Pin the tool version in the lockfile so a upstream release does not silently change behavior. Review the gate output in every pull request just like a test result.