Incident Priorities#

IncidentRelay uses a P1-P5 priority scale for alert groups / incidents.

Priority is separate from alert severity. Severity describes the incoming signal. Priority describes the response importance of the incident.

Automatic priority#

When an incoming alert creates or updates an incident, IncidentRelay can resolve a priority from the alert severity.

Automatic priority changes follow conservative rules:

• a new incident gets a priority derived from the incoming alert severity;
• an automatic priority can be raised when a more important signal arrives;
• an automatic priority is not lowered by a later less important signal;
• a manually selected priority is not overwritten by incoming alert severity.

This keeps automated routing useful without losing responder intent.

Manual priority#

Responders can manually set incident priority from the incident details experience.

Manual priority changes:

• mark the priority as manually selected;
• update editable notification messages where supported;
• add timeline context;
• can notify stakeholders that requested priority-change notifications.

A manual priority override can be removed from the incident details view by selecting Reset to automatic.

After the reset, IncidentRelay restores priority according to the effective policy update mode:

• initial_only restores the priority selected for the first alert;
• raise_only restores the highest priority found in the incident alert history;
• recalculate selects the highest priority among currently active alerts.

If no eligible alert priority is available, the policy fallback or severity mapping is used.

Filtering and sorting#

The Alerts page supports filtering by priority and sorting priority-first. Priority is also shown in alert details and dashboard summaries.

Use priority filters when a large incident list needs triage by response importance rather than by raw severity.

Notifications#

Priority is included in notification output for supported channels:

• email;
• Mattermost;
• Telegram;
• browser push.

Notification titles can include the short priority label, for example:

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