Spectate
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Quickstart

This guide takes a new Spectate account to a working setup. At the end, Spectate checks one website, sends you an email when the website goes down, and shows its status on a public status page. You do every step in the dashboard at app.spectate.net.

Create an account

  1. Open app.spectate.net/register.
  2. Enter your name, email address and password.
  3. Select Create account.
  4. Open the email from Spectate and select the verification link.

To sign up with GitHub, Google or Microsoft, select the provider above the form instead.

Spectate creates a team for you with your name, for example "Ada Lovelace's Team". The team starts a 14-day trial with the limits of the Team plan. You do not need a payment card for the trial. To change the name of the team, go to Team and edit Team name. See Teams and roles and Plans and billing.

The dashboard opens on Overview with a setup checklist. The checklist shows which of the steps below are done.

Add an HTTPS monitor

A monitor checks one target from one region, at a fixed interval.

  1. In the sidebar, select Monitors.
  2. Select Create monitor.
  3. Under Type, select HTTPS.
  4. In Target, enter the address without https://, for example example.com/health.
  5. Check the Name. Spectate fills it in from the target.
  6. Under Interval, select how often Spectate checks the target. The default is 5 minutes.
  7. Under Primary region, select the region nearest to your users. The default is Europe.
  8. Select Create and start.

The monitor is pending until its first check. After a successful check, the monitor is up. For HTTPS monitors, the dialog also turns on certificate checks.

The shortest interval depends on the plan: 60 seconds on Starter, 30 seconds on Team and Business. The trial allows 30 seconds.

Send alerts to your email address

A new team has no channels and no escalation paths. Until you add them, an alert notifies nobody. The monitor settings show the warning "No team default path yet".

Add an email channel first:

  1. In the sidebar, select Alerting.
  2. Under Channels, select New channel.
  3. Select Email.
  4. In Name, enter a name, for example My email.
  5. In Email address, enter the address that must get the alerts.
  6. Select Create channel.
  7. On the new channel, select Send test.

Spectate sends a test email to the address. If it does not arrive, look in your spam folder.

Then add an escalation path and make it the team default:

  1. On the Alerting page, select New path.
  2. In Name, enter a name, for example Default.
  3. Keep Enabled selected.
  4. Select Use as team default.
  5. Select Create and open builder.

The builder opens with one step. This step sends each alert to your email channel at once. Alerts from monitors without their own escalation paths now follow this path.

When a check fails, Spectate checks the target again about 5 seconds later. If that check also fails, the monitor is down. Spectate then fires a critical alert, and the escalation path sends you an email. When a later check succeeds, Spectate resolves the alert and sends a resolved email.

Test the alert

To see a real alert, make the monitor fail on purpose:

  1. Open the monitor.
  2. Select the Settings tab.
  3. Under Availability, set Expected status to 500.
  4. Select Save changes.

At the next check, the website answers with a status code that is not 500. Spectate confirms the failure and sends the alert email. Then clear Expected status and select Save changes again. Without a value, every status code from 200 to 399 counts as up.

Create a status page

A status page shows your customers which parts of your service work.

  1. In the sidebar, select Status pages.
  2. Select Create status page.
  3. In Name, enter the name your customers know, for example Acme.
  4. Check the Slug. The slug is part of the public URL, https://SLUG.spectate.page.
  5. Under Visibility, keep Public.
  6. Select Create status page.

The dashboard opens the new status page. Now add the monitor as a component:

  1. Select the Components tab.
  2. Select Add component.
  3. In Name, enter the name that visitors see, for example Website.
  4. In Linked monitor, select your HTTPS monitor.
  5. Select Create component.

Open https://SLUG.spectate.page to see the page. The component shows the uptime of the linked monitor.

A linked monitor does not change the component status on its own. The status comes from status page incidents and maintenance. To let the monitor open and resolve a public incident, go to the Settings tab of the status page. Under Automation, select Open and resolve incidents from linked monitors.

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