Email

Create incidents by sending emails to your team’s Rootly alias, and send templated email notifications from workflows.

Overview

Rootly’s Email integration works in both directions. Inbound emails to your team’s generated alias automatically open new incidents, while the Send an email workflow action lets you notify stakeholders at any point during an incident.

Email-to-Incident

Send an email to your Rootly alias to instantly create an incident — no login required.

Severity Detection

Rootly automatically maps severity from the email subject line using tags like [SEV0] or sev1.

Reply to Timeline

Reply to an incident notification email and Rootly adds your reply to the incident timeline.

Workflow Notifications

Send fully templated emails to any address from a workflow, with Liquid variables, CC, BCC, and custom branding.

Installation

The Email integration provisions automatically — there are no API keys or OAuth flows to complete.

1. Connect the integration

   Go to Configuration → Integrations, find Email, and click Setup.

   

   Rootly immediately generates a unique email alias for your team.

2. Copy your alias

   After connecting, click Settings to view your team’s alias. It looks like:

   incidents-{secret}@email.rootly.io
   

   

   Copy this address — you’ll send incident-creating emails to it and can share it with monitoring tools or on-call rotation scripts.

Creating Incidents via Email

To open an incident, send an email to your alias. The email subject becomes the incident title and the body becomes the initial description.

Automatic Severity Detection

Rootly parses the subject line for severity tags and maps them to your configured severities. Supported formats:

Subject format	Mapped severity
[SEV0] Shopping cart is showing empty items	SEV0
Shopping cart is showing empty items [SEV1]	SEV1
Shopping cart is showing empty items, this is a sev1	SEV1
Shopping cart is showing empty items	(none — not mapped)

Severity tags are only matched if the corresponding severity exists in your Rootly configuration. If no match is found, the incident is created without a severity.

Replying to Incidents via Email

When Rootly sends an email notification for an incident, you can reply to it directly. Rootly detects the reply and appends it to the incident timeline.

Workflow Action

Send an Email

Sends a fully templated email from a workflow. All text fields support Liquid variables.

From · string · required

The sender address displayed to recipients. Defaults to Rootly <[e-mail]>. You can override this with a custom address.

To · array · required

One or more recipient email addresses. Supports Liquid — for example, {{ incident.commander.email }} to notify the incident commander.

CC · array

Email addresses to copy on the message.

BCC · array

Email addresses to blind-copy. Maximum 10 BCC recipients on trial plans.

Subject · string · required

The email subject line. Defaults to {{ incident.title }} is on fire. Supports Liquid.

Body · string

The email body. Supports Markdown formatting and Liquid variables.

Preheader · string

Short preview text that appears in the recipient’s inbox next to the subject line. Supports Liquid.

Custom Logo URL · string

A URL pointing to an image to use as the email header logo. Overrides the default Rootly logo.

Include Header · boolean

Whether to include the email header section. Defaults to true.

Include Footer · boolean

Whether to include the email footer section. Defaults to true.

Set the To field to {{ incident.commander.email }} or {{ incident.subscribers | map: 'email' | join: ',' }} to dynamically address emails based on who is assigned to the incident.

Uninstall

To remove the Email integration:

1. Go to Configuration → Integrations and find Email
2. Click Settings
3. Click Delete

Deleting the integration permanently removes your alias. Any monitoring tools or scripts sending emails to the old alias will stop creating incidents. You will receive a new alias if you reconnect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use my own email domain for the alias?

No. The inbound alias is always on Rootly’s domain (email.rootly.io). If you need to route from your own domain, set up email forwarding from your mail provider to the Rootly alias.

Can multiple monitoring tools share the same alias?

Yes. Any email sent to your alias creates an incident, regardless of the sender. You can configure as many tools as needed to send alerts to the same address.

What happens if the To field resolves to empty?

The workflow action is skipped and a log entry is recorded. No email is sent. This can happen if a Liquid expression resolves to an empty value — double-check your template variables if emails aren’t being delivered.

Is there a limit on recipients?

On trial plans, BCC is capped at 10 recipients and total recipients (To + CC + BCC) at 50. Paid plans do not have these restrictions.