# Issues, monitors, alerts and incidents

> One meaning per word: event, issue, monitor, monitor problem, alert message, incident, release and environment; what Belvador has today and why unknown is never healthy.

Belvador uses the same words as the rest of the industry, each with one meaning. This page says what each word means here and what Belvador does with it today.

## From an error to an incident

```text
event ──grouped──► issue ──a rule matches──► alert message
check-in / ping / uptime result ──a monitor is broken──► monitor problem (open until it recovers)
```

- An **event** is one error report your app sent. Events are stored on your node.
- An **issue** groups events with the same cause, using the stack trace and a versioned grouping algorithm. An issue lives across many occurrences: it can be resolved, come back (regression) or spike (escalating). See [Issues](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/issues).
- A **monitor** is a rule about what must be true: a job runs on schedule, a ping URL is called, an endpoint answers, an SLO stays within budget. See [Monitors](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/monitors/overview), [Uptime](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/uptime/quickstart) and [SLOs](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/slos).
- A **monitor problem** is one stretch of time when a monitor is broken — a missed run, a failed run, a down endpoint, an SLO burning too fast. It opens on its own and closes on its own when the monitor recovers. Other tools call this an *alert*; Belvador's app shows it on the monitor, check or SLO page.
- An **alert message** is what Belvador sends to your Telegram bot, Slack, email or webhook when an [alert rule](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/alerts) matches an issue event or a monitor problem.

## Incident

In the industry an **incident** is a piece of work that needs a person: someone acknowledges it, owns it and confirms recovery. Belvador does not have incidents with owners or acknowledgement yet. Today, issues and monitor problems are tracked separately and alert messages go to the destinations you choose.

**Acknowledging is not recovering.** Recovery means fresh evidence — the monitor passing again, the issue not coming back — not someone saying it is fixed.

## Release and environment

- A **release** is the version string your app sends with each event (`release` in `init`). Issues can be filtered by release, and source maps are matched by it.
- An **environment** (`production`, `staging`…) separates data from different deployments of the same app.

## Unknown is not healthy

When Belvador cannot see something — the node is offline, a region did not report, no event has ever arrived from a runtime — it says **unknown** or **not verified**, never green. A quiet project is not proof that errors are being sent: use the [connection check](https://belvador.dev/en/docs/sdk/verify).