Configure mute timings and active time intervals

Mute timings and active time intervals let you determine how your alert notifications are handled during designated periods of time. After you create a time interval, you can apply it as either a mute timing or active time interval for your notification policies.

A mute timing is a recurring interval that stops notifications for one or multiple notification policies during a specified period. It suppresses notifications but does not interrupt alert evaluation.

Use mute timings to temporarily pause notifications for a specific recurring period, such as a regular maintenance window or weekends.

Active time intervals provide the opposite functionality, where alerts handled by a notification policy are suppressed unless the notification happens at a time that matches the time interval. Use active time intervals for periods where you want to reduce alert noise. Mute timings take precedence over active time intervals when they overlap.

{{< admonition type="note" >}} Mute timings and active time intervals are assigned to a specific Alertmanager and only suppress notifications for alerts managed by that Alertmanager. {{< /admonition >}}

Mute timings and active time intervals vs silences

Mute timings and active time intervals and silences are distinct methods to suppress notifications. They do not prevent alert rules from being evaluated or stop alert instances from appearing in the user interface; they only prevent notifications from being created.

The following table highlights the key differences between mute timings and silences.

	Mute timing	Silence
Setup	Created and then added to notification policies	Matches alerts using labels to determine whether to silence them
Period	Uses time interval definitions that can repeat periodically	Has a fixed start and end time

Add time intervals

1. In the left-side menu, click Alerts & IRM, and then Alerting.
2. Click Notification configuration, then select the Time intervals tab.
3. From the Alertmanager dropdown, select an external Alertmanager. By default, the Grafana Alertmanager is selected.
4. Click + New time interval.
5. Fill out the form to create a time interval to match against for your mute timing or active time interval.
6. Save your changes.

Assign a time interval to a notification policy

1. In the left-side menu, click Alerts & IRM, and then Alerting.
2. Click Notification configuration, then select the Notification policies tab.
3. Find the notification policy you would like to add the time intervals to and click ... -> Edit.
4. From either the Mute timings or Active time intervals dropdowns, choose the time intervals you would like to add to the policy.
5. Save your changes.

Time intervals

A time interval is a specific duration during which alerts are suppressed. The duration typically consists of a specific time range and the days of the week, month, or year.

A mute timing or active time interval can contain multiple time intervals.

Supported time interval options are:

• Time range: The time inclusive of the start and exclusive of the end time (in UTC if no location has been selected, otherwise local time).
• Location: Depending on the location you select, the time range is displayed in local time.
• Days of the week: The day or range of days of the week. Example: monday:thursday.
• Days of the month: The date 1-31 of a month. Negative values can also be used to represent days that begin at the end of the month. For example: -1 for the last day of the month.
• Months: The months of the year in either numerical or the full calendar month. For example: 1, may:august.
• Years: The year or years for the interval. For example: 2021:2024.

All fields are lists; to match the field, at least one list element must be satisfied. Fields also support ranges using : (e.g., monday:thursday).

If a field is left blank, any moment of time matches the field. For an instant of time to match a complete time interval, all fields must match.

If you want to specify an exact duration, specify all the options.

Example

If you wanted to create a time interval for the first Monday of the month, for March, June, September, and December, between the hours of 12:00 and 24:00 UTC your time interval specification would be:

• Time range:
  • Start time: 12:00
  • End time: 24:00
• Days of the week: monday
• Months: 3, 6, 9, 12
• Days of the month: 1:7