> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs-xcor.paloaltonetworks.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Alert metrics

> Query the ALERTS metric with PromQL to inspect triggered and pending alert series.

In addition to monitors and alerts, you can query metrics for any triggered series.
The series are all under a single metric name `ALERTS` that you can query with PromQL
as normal. The series contain metadata such as `alertname`, `alertstate`, and `severity`.

The value for these is only ever `1`, which occurs when triggering the alert, or
the alert is in a pending state. When the alert is in a passing state, the series
isn't emitted.

For example, the following monitor definition emits a corresponding series with the
value of `1` when triggering the alert:

## Definition

```yaml theme={null}
monitors:
  - name: Errors per second
    labels:
      - name: priority
        value: sev-0
      - name: team
        value:
    spec:
      query:
        prometheus:
          expr: sum(rate(fetch_errors{code="4XX"}[1m]))
      series_conditions:
        defaults:
          critical:
            conditions:
              - op: GEQ
                value: 1
                sustain: 180s
```

## Metric

```text theme={null}
ALERTS{alertname="Errors per second", alertstate="firing", code="4XX", priority="sev-0", team="A"}
```

The labels attached to this special `ALERTS` metric are a combination of the labels
from the alerting time series and the labels defined in the `labels` section of
the monitor specification.

Annotations, if defined, aren't included as part of the labels, and labels in the
`labels` configuration override any labels on the metric itself. For example, if
there's a `job` label on the alerting time series and a `job` label defined in the
alert definition, the alert definition label takes priority.


## Related topics

- [Alert details](/investigate/alerts/alert-details.md)
- [Troubleshoot monitors and alerts](/investigate/alerts/troubleshooting.md)
- [Metrics dictionary](/overview/concepts/dictionary.md)
- [Search and query metrics](/investigate/querying/metrics.md)
- [Using PromQL in Cortex XCOR](/investigate/querying/promql.md)


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