Honeycomb

Receive Honeycomb alerts in Rootly to trigger incidents, notify Slack, or page your on-call team.

Overview

Rootly receives alerts from Honeycomb via webhooks. When Honeycomb detects anomalies like latency spikes, error rate increases, or threshold breaches, it sends an alert to Rootly. From there, Rootly can create an incident, notify Slack, or page your on-call team automatically.

Before You Begin

You will need a Honeycomb account with admin access to create API keys and alert policies, and a Rootly account with Admin permissions to create integrations.

Step 1: Get Your API Key from Honeycomb

You will first create a Configuration API key in Honeycomb. Rootly uses this key to authenticate your environment and generate the webhook URL and secret needed in the next steps.

1. Open your Honeycomb environment

   Log into Honeycomb and select the environment you want to integrate with Rootly.

   
2. Create a Configuration API Key

   Go to Settings → API Keys and click Create a Configuration API Key.

   

   Honeycomb has two types of API keys: Configuration and Management. Rootly requires a Configuration (environment-level) key.

3. Save the API Key

   Name the key, set any permissions, and click Create Key. Copy the key immediately — you will need it in the next step.

   

   

   The API key is used only to authenticate Rootly to your Honeycomb environment and generate a webhook URL and secret. Rootly does not make direct calls to Honeycomb to read or write data.

Step 2: Connect Honeycomb in Rootly

Now that you have your Honeycomb API key, connect the integration in Rootly to generate the webhook URL and secret you will configure in Honeycomb.

1. Open Integrations

   In Rootly, navigate to Configuration → Integrations and search for Honeycomb.

   

   
2. Enter your API Key

   Click Setup, paste your Honeycomb API key, and click Connect.

   
3. Copy your Webhook URL and Secret

   After connecting, Rootly displays a Webhook URL and Secret. Copy both — you will need them in Step 3.

   

Step 3: Create a Webhook in Honeycomb

Now that you have the Webhook URL and Secret from Rootly, go back to Honeycomb and create a webhook integration that forwards alerts to Rootly. The webhook URL format depends on whether you want to page someone or just surface alerts.

1. Open Team Settings

   In Honeycomb, navigate to Account → Team Settings → Integrations.

   

   
2. Add a Webhook integration

   Click Add Integration, select Webhook as the provider, and give it a descriptive name (e.g., Rootly Alerts or Page On-Call).

   
3. Configure the Webhook URL

   Choose the alert type and enter the appropriate URL:

   General Alerts

   Alerts appear in Rootly’s Alerts page without paging anyone. Use this for low-priority or informational notifications.

   https://webhooks.rootly.com/webhooks/incoming/honeycomb_webhooks?secret=YOUR_SECRET
   

   Replace YOUR_SECRET with the secret from Rootly.

   

   Paging Alerts

   Alerts trigger an on-call notification for a specific Rootly resource. Replace RESOURCE_TYPE and RESOURCE_ID with your target.

   https://webhooks.rootly.com/webhooks/incoming/honeycomb_webhooks/notify/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID?secret=YOUR_SECRET
   

   Parameter	Allowed values
   RESOURCE_TYPE	User, Group, EscalationPolicy, Service
   RESOURCE_ID	Found by editing the resource in Rootly

   The secret must appear in both the Webhook URL query string and the Shared Secret field. They must match exactly.

4. Save the integration

   Click Add to create the webhook integration.

   

Your webhook is now active. Any Honeycomb alert policy using this integration will send alerts to Rootly.

Verify Installation

1. Go to the Alerts page in Rootly
2. Trigger a test alert in Honeycomb
3. Confirm the alert appears in Rootly within a few seconds

Uninstall

To remove the Honeycomb integration:

1. Go to Configuration → Integrations and find Honeycomb
2. Click the Connected button to reveal the disconnect option
3. Click Delete

Disconnecting in Rootly does not stop Honeycomb from sending alerts. Delete the webhook in Honeycomb under Team Settings → Integrations to stop alert delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Alerts are not appearing in Rootly

Verify the webhook URL includes the secret as a query parameter (?secret=...). Confirm the Shared Secret field in Honeycomb matches the URL secret exactly. Check that the alert policy in Honeycomb is using this webhook integration.

403 or authentication errors

The secret in the URL must match the Shared Secret field exactly — regenerate the secret in Rootly and update both places in Honeycomb if needed. Also verify you are using a Configuration API key, not a Management key.

Paging alerts are not triggering on-call

Verify you are using the /notify/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID URL format. Confirm the resource type is one of User, Group, EscalationPolicy, or Service, and that the resource ID exists in Rootly.