Slack Notifications

FirmHook can send alerts to Slack when deliveries fail, giving your team immediate visibility without requiring someone to watch the dashboard all day.

This guide covers setup, recommended alert rules, and how to test the integration safely.

Slack notifications are available on paid plans that include alert integrations.

What you will need

Before starting, make sure you have:

Access to the Slack workspace where alerts should be posted
Permission to create a Slack app or incoming webhook
Admin or owner access in the FirmHook organization

Step 1: Create a Slack incoming webhook

Create a Slack app

1Visit api.slack.com/apps
2Select Create New App
3Choose From scratch
4Give the app a name such as FirmHook Alerts
5Choose the Slack workspace where the messages should appear

Enable incoming webhooks

Inside the new Slack app:

1Open Incoming Webhooks
2Turn Activate Incoming Webhooks on

Connect it to a channel

1Select Add New Webhook to Workspace
2Choose a channel such as #webhook-alerts
3Approve the installation

Slack will generate a webhook URL similar to this:

text
https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Treat this URL as a secret. Anyone with it can post messages into your Slack channel.

Step 2: Add the webhook URL in FirmHook

In the FirmHook dashboard:

1Open your organization
2Go to Settings -> Notifications
3Paste the Slack webhook URL into the Slack webhook field
4Save the changes

Once saved, FirmHook can begin sending alert messages to that Slack channel.

Step 3: Choose your alert behavior

FirmHook supports two common failure alert patterns:

Setting	Recommended default	What it does
`notify_on_dead`	`On`	Sends an alert when all retries are exhausted and manual action is likely needed
`notify_on_failure`	`Off`	Sends an alert on every failed delivery attempt

For most teams, the best starting setup is:

Keep notify_on_dead enabled
Keep notify_on_failure disabled

This reduces noise and helps your channel stay useful during temporary outages or short-lived retries.

Step 4: Test the integration

The fastest test is to point a temporary endpoint to a URL that returns a failure response.

Example flow:

1Create or edit an endpoint and set its destination to https://httpstat.us/500
2Send a test webhook to the FirmHook ingest URL

bash
curl -X POST https://acme-corp.firmhook.com/<endpoint-id> \
  -H "X-Webhook-Api-Key: whq_your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"event\":\"test\"}"

What happens next depends on your settings:

If notify_on_failure is enabled, Slack receives an alert after the first failed attempt
If only notify_on_dead is enabled, Slack receives an alert after all retries are exhausted

Recommended channel setup

To keep alerting useful as your team grows:

Use a dedicated channel such as #firmhook-alerts
Keep the channel focused on failures, not general discussion
Pair Slack alerts with email for owner-level visibility
Review alert volume monthly to make sure you are not over-notifying

Disable Slack alerts

To stop Slack notifications:

1Open Settings -> Notifications
2Clear the saved Slack webhook URL
3Save the settings

FirmHook stops sending new Slack alerts immediately after the webhook is removed.

Notes and limitations

Slack and email alerts are independent, so you can use either or both
A Slack incoming webhook posts to one fixed channel
To change the Slack destination channel, generate a new webhook in Slack and replace the saved URL in FirmHook
If no alert email is configured, FirmHook can fall back to organization owners and admins for email delivery

Troubleshooting

If alerts are not arriving:

Confirm the Slack webhook URL was copied fully
Make sure the endpoint actually failed and retried
Check whether your current plan includes Slack notifications
Re-save the notification settings and run another failure test

If the dashboard shows failed deliveries but Slack stays silent, start by checking whether notify_on_dead or notify_on_failure matches the scenario you are testing.

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