Available Tools
Complete reference for all MCP tools provided by the Alertmanager MCP Server. Tools are organized by category — 14 tools across 6 categories.
Alert Triage
Tools for listing, filtering, and summarizing active alerts.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_list_alerts | List alerts with label/state filters and pagination |
am_list_alert_groups | List alert groups as computed by Alertmanager |
am_push_test_alert | Fire a synthetic test alert to verify notification integrations |
am_list_alerts
Lists active, suppressed, or unprocessed alerts with optional label and severity filters.
"Show me all critical alerts in production."
"List alerts for the checkout service."
"What alerts are currently suppressed by silences?"
am_list_alert_groups
Returns alert groups as Alertmanager computes them — respecting group_by labels from the routing configuration.
"How are the current alerts grouped?"
"Show me alert groups for the api-server."
am_push_test_alert
Fires a synthetic alert into Alertmanager to verify notification integrations. This fires a real alert — downstream integrations (Slack, PagerDuty, email) will receive notifications.
"Push a test alert to verify that the slack-sre receiver is working."
"Fire a test alert with labels team=platform and severity=warning."
am_push_test_alert fires a real alert into Alertmanager. Downstream integrations will receive actual notifications. Use descriptive labels like alertname: "MCPIntegrationTest" to distinguish test alerts.
Silence Lifecycle
Full CRUD for managing Alertmanager silences with safety guardrails.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_list_silences | List silences with optional state filter and pagination |
am_create_silence | Create a silence to suppress matching alerts |
am_update_silence | Extend or modify an existing silence |
am_expire_silence | Expire a silence to reactivate notifications |
am_create_silence
Creates a new silence with matchers, duration, comment, and author. Includes built-in safety:
- Duplicate detection — blocks creating equivalent active silences
- Duration cap — enforces
AM_MAX_SILENCE_MINUTES(default 24h) - Blast-radius warning — warns if silence affects ≥ N alerts
"Silence alerts for the checkout service for 2 hours during deployment."
"Create a silence matching alertname=HighMemory and env=staging for 30 minutes."
am_update_silence
Extends the duration of an existing silence. Alertmanager silences are immutable — this creates a new silence that replaces the old one.
"Extend the checkout silence by 30 more minutes — deployment is still running."
am_expire_silence
Immediately expires a silence, reactivating alert notifications.
"Expire the checkout maintenance silence — deployment is done."
"Remove all silences I created today."
Silence Helpers
Convenience tools for common silence patterns.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_preview_silence | Preview the blast radius of a silence before creating it |
am_silence_alert | Create a narrowly-scoped silence for a specific alert |
am_preview_silence
Mandatory before broad silences. Shows how many alerts would be affected, which receivers would lose notifications, and raises a warning flag if the blast radius exceeds the threshold.
"Preview what would happen if I silence all checkout alerts."
"Show me the blast radius of silencing env=prod."
am_silence_alert
LLM-friendly helper that creates a silence scoped to a specific alert. Supports three scope levels:
| Scope | Matchers Used | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
instance | All alert labels | Narrowest — silences exactly this alert instance |
service (default) | alertname + service + env | Recommended — silences this alert type for this service |
env | env only | Broadest — silences everything in the environment |
"Silence this specific HighCPU alert for the api-server."
"Mute all HighMemory alerts across the staging environment for 1 hour."
Routing & Notifications
Tools for inspecting and simulating Alertmanager's routing configuration.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_explain_routing | Simulate routing for a label set with human-readable explanation |
am_audit_default_route | Show alerts falling into the default route |
am_explain_routing
Simulates the routing tree for a given set of labels — equivalent to amtool config routes test. Returns the matched route, target receivers, group labels, inhibition status, and a human-readable explanation.
"Who gets paged when a critical alert fires for the api-server?"
"Simulate routing for alertname=HighLatency, service=checkout, severity=critical."
"Where does a warning alert for team=platform end up?"
am_audit_default_route
Identifies alerts that are hitting the default (fallback) route — often a sign of misconfigured routing.
"Are any alerts falling through to the default route?"
"Show me alerts that aren't reaching their intended receiver."
Governance & Audit
Tools for compliance, audit trails, and policy validation.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_list_recent_changes | List recent silence changes (created, expired, updated) |
am_validate_silence_policy | Validate a proposed silence against organizational policy |
am_list_recent_changes
Returns silence lifecycle events within a time window — who created, expired, or extended silences, with timestamps and matcher details.
"Show me all silence changes in the last 24 hours."
"Who created silences yesterday?"
am_validate_silence_policy
Checks a proposed silence against organizational policy before creation — duration caps, comment requirements, matcher breadth, and blast radius.
"Would this silence pass our compliance policy?"
"Validate my proposed 48-hour silence for env=prod."
On-Call Triage
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
am_summarize_oncall | Generate a human-readable on-call summary |
am_summarize_oncall
Generates a summary of active alerts grouped by severity and service — the first thing to read at the start of an on-call shift.
"Summarize what's firing right now."
"Give me the on-call summary for the production backend."
"What's the current alert landscape?"
Example output:
🚨 On-Call Summary — 12 active alert(s)
🔴 Critical: 3
🟡 Warning: 7
⚪ Info: 2
Top affected services:
- api-server: 5 alert(s)
- checkout: 3 alert(s)
- payments: 2 alert(s)
Tool Availability Summary
| Category | Total Tools |
|---|---|
| Alert Triage | 3 |
| Silence Lifecycle | 4 |
| Silence Helpers | 2 |
| Routing & Notifications | 2 |
| Governance & Audit | 2 |
| On-Call Triage | 1 |
| Total | 14 |
Next Steps
- Resources — 11 MCP resources for discovery and monitoring
- Common Workflows — Step-by-step workflow guides
- Examples — Quick reference and natural language prompts