Generate Message Template

Nightingale (n9e) Notification Message Template Generation

Nightingale message templates use Go text/template / html/template syntax (email uses text/template, others use html/template and then escape). Users edit them on the "Notification Management → Message Templates" page; once saved they are referenced by notification rules, and when an alert fires the variables are substituted with rendered data and sent to each channel.

This skill focuses on writing/modifying the template fragment itself, and does not cover creating notification rules or channel configuration.

Render Context

The renderData passed in when the backend executes:

Automatically injected shorthands (no need to write by hand):

{{ $events := .events }}
{{ $event := index $events 0 }}
{{ $labels := $event.TagsMap }}
{{ $value := $event.TriggerValue }}

So inside the template you can directly use $event.xxx, $labels.agent_hostname, and $value.

Available $event Fields (*AlertCurEvent)

Common Fields

Labels / Annotations / Trigger Value Objects

Notification Objects

User objects are commonly used in DingTalk/Feishu/Lark templates to build @-mentions; see the ats family of helpers below.

Available Helper Functions (tplx.TemplateFuncMap)

Time

• timeformat <unix> — defaults to "2006-01-02 15:04:05"; pass a second argument to override: {{timeformat $event.TriggerTime "15:04:05"}}
• timestamp — current time string
• now.Unix — current unix seconds (now is a Go template builtin)
• humanizeDuration <sec> — "3m15s"
• humanizeDurationInterface <interface> — same as above but accepts an interface
• toTime <unix> — returns a time.Time, can be chained
• parseDuration <"5m"> — returns a time.Duration

Numbers / Formatting

• formatDecimal <v> <n> — keep n decimal places ({{formatDecimal $event.TriggerValue 2}})
• humanize <v> — K/M/G units (base 1000, SI)
• humanize1024 <v> — Ki/Mi/Gi (base 1024)
• humanizePercentage <v> / humanizePercentageH <v> — percentage
• add / sub / mul / div <a> <b> — arithmetic
• printf "%.2f" <v> — Go fmt.Sprintf

Strings

• toUpper / toLower / title — case conversion
• contains <s> <sub> — substring
• match <regex> <s> — regex match (bool)
• reReplaceAll <regex> <repl> <s> — regex replace
• split <s> <sep> / join <slice> <sep>
• stripPort <host:port> / stripDomain <host.domain>
• b64enc / b64dec — base64

Links / Escaping

• escape <s> — URL path escape
• unescaped <s> — output raw HTML (no escaping)
• safeHtml <s> — same as above
• urlconvert <s>

Labels / Trigger Values

• label <key> <labelMap> / value <key> <m> / strvalue <v>
• first <slice> — take the first
• tagsMapToStr <map> — join labels into k=v,k=v
• sortByLabel <items> <key> — sort by label

@-mention (DingTalk/Feishu/Lark only)

• ats <users> <platform> — generate an at fragment
• batchContactsAts <contacts> <platform> — batch at
• batchContactsAtsInFeishuEmail <contacts> / batchContactsAtsInFeishuId <contacts> — Feishu only
• batchContactsJoinComma <contacts> / batchContactsJsonMarshal <contacts>
• mappingAndJoin <map> <kvSep> <itemSep>

Others

• jsonMarshal <v> — serialize to a JSON string
• mapDifference <a> <b> — set difference

Syntax Differences Across Channels (notify_channel_ident)

A message template is bound to a specific channel; the channel ident determines the text engine and escaping behavior:

Important: html/template automatically escapes < > &. Where you don't want escaping, use {{unescaped "…"}} or {{safeHtml .X}}, otherwise DingTalk will render a literal <.

Template Writing Workflow

1. Confirm the channel ident: when the user says "DingTalk" it is dingtalk, "Feishu card" is feishucard, "email" is email. Different channels differ significantly in style.
2. Decide whether to render the recovery state: by default you should split into two branches on $event.IsRecovered. Only SMS/voice may omit it.
3. Pick fields:
   • For labels, prefer $labels.<key> rather than $event.TagsJSON.
   • For the trigger value use $event.TriggerValue; for two decimal places use {{formatDecimal $event.TriggerValue 2}}.
   • Always pass timestamps through timeformat.
   • Build the redirect link as {{.domain}}/share/alert-his-events/{{$event.Id}}.
4. Severity display:
   • Number: {{$event.Severity}}
   • Worded: {{if eq $event.Severity 1}}Critical{{else if eq $event.Severity 2}}Warning{{else}}Info{{end}}
   • English: Critical / Warning / Info
5. @-mention (DingTalk/Feishu):
   • DingTalk @everyone: add a line @all at the end of the template (DingTalk matches by splitting on spaces). To at an exact phone number: {{range $event.NotifyUsersObj}}@{{.Phone}} {{end}}.
   • Feishu card: use {{batchContactsAtsInFeishuEmail $event.NotifyUsersObj}} to build <at email=...></at> fragments.
6. Output: wrap the template body in a markdown gotemplate ``` code block, and at the end provide a variable/function explanation with each non-trivial variable/function on its own line.

Output Format

When replying to the user:

1. One or two sentences of introduction explaining what the template is for and which channel it fits.

2. <template content>
   

3. **Variable explanation**: list the non-trivial fields and functions used in the template (such as $event.TargetIdent, formatDecimal, timeformat), one per line.
4. If the user's request is ambiguous (for example "add the hostname" — is it target_ident or some tag), state directly in the introduction what assumption you made, rather than asking back.

The language follows the user's input (use Chinese if the input is Chinese).

Built-in Reference Templates (Starting Points for Customization)

DingTalk markdown (full version)

#### {{if $event.IsRecovered}}<font color="#008800">💚{{$event.RuleName}}</font>{{else}}<font color="#FF0000">💔{{$event.RuleName}}</font>{{end}}
---
{{$duration := sub now.Unix $event.FirstTriggerTime}}{{if $event.IsRecovered}}{{$duration = sub $event.LastEvalTime $event.FirstTriggerTime}}{{end}}
- **Alert Level**: S{{$event.Severity}}
{{- if $event.RuleNote}}
- **Rule Note**: {{$event.RuleNote}}
{{- end}}
{{- if $event.TargetIdent}}
- **Target**: {{$event.TargetIdent}}
{{- end}}
{{- if not $event.IsRecovered}}
- **Trigger Value**: {{$event.TriggerValue}}
- **Trigger Time**: {{timeformat $event.TriggerTime}}
- **Duration**: {{humanizeDurationInterface $duration}}
{{- else}}
- **Recovery Time**: {{timeformat $event.LastEvalTime}}
- **Duration**: {{humanizeDurationInterface $duration}}
{{- end}}
- **Event Tags**:
{{- range $k, $v := $labels}}
{{- if ne $k "rulename"}}
    - {{$k}}: {{$v}}
{{- end}}
{{- end}}
[Event Detail]({{.domain}}/share/alert-his-events/{{$event.Id}}) | [Mute 1h]({{.domain}}/alert-mutes/add?__event_id={{$event.Id}})

Feishu card (concise version)

{{- if $event.IsRecovered}}
**Severity/State:** S{{$event.Severity}} Recovered
**Alert Name:** {{$event.RuleName}}
**Event Tags:** {{$event.TagsJSON}}
**Recovery Time:** {{timeformat $event.LastEvalTime}}
{{- else}}
**Severity/State:** S{{$event.Severity}} Triggered
**Alert Name:** {{$event.RuleName}}
**Event Tags:** {{$event.TagsJSON}}
**Trigger Time:** {{timeformat $event.TriggerTime}}
**Trigger Value:** {{$event.TriggerValue}}
{{- if $event.RuleNote}}
**Alert Description:** {{$event.RuleNote}}
{{- end}}
{{- end}}

SMS / Voice (minimal)

Severity/State: S{{$event.Severity}} {{if $event.IsRecovered}}Recovered{{else}}Triggered{{end}} Rule: {{$event.RuleName}} Target: {{$event.TargetIdent}}

Typical Customization Scenarios

1) "Add the hostname to the DingTalk template"

- **Host**: {{$event.TargetIdent}}
{{- if $labels.ip}}
- **IP**: {{$labels.ip}}
{{- end}}

Note: target_ident is usually the hostname; if you need the IP, prefer the labels ip, instance, host.

2) "Keep trigger_value to two decimal places"

- **Trigger Value**: {{formatDecimal $event.TriggerValue 2}}

TriggerValue is itself a string; formatDecimal first converts it to a float and then formats it, and returns non-numeric values unchanged.

3) "@-mention the alert recipients at the end of the DingTalk template"

...template body...

{{- range $event.NotifyUsersObj}}@{{.Phone}} {{end}}

DingTalk identifies @-mentioned users by "space + phone number". Or uniformly use @all.

4) "Show the recovery value on recovery"

{{- if $event.IsRecovered}}
{{- if $event.AnnotationsJSON.recovery_value}}
- **Recovery Value**: {{formatDecimal $event.AnnotationsJSON.recovery_value 4}}
{{- end}}
- **Recovery Time**: {{timeformat $event.LastEvalTime}}
{{- end}}

The recovery value is written into AnnotationsJSON.recovery_value by the alert engine on recovery, and only exists when there is a recovery value, so guard it with if.

5) "Use Chinese for the alert severity"

- **Severity**: {{if eq $event.Severity 1}}Critical{{else if eq $event.Severity 2}}Warning{{else}}Info{{end}}

6) "Only send alerts for production-environment machines"

The template itself does not do filtering — filtering should go into the attributes / label_keys of the notification rule. The template is only responsible for display. If the user asks about this, point it out.

7) "Color by state/severity"

DingTalk/email use <font color>, Feishu cards use the template field to fill in a color keyword:

{{/* DingTalk markdown: prepend emoji + color to the title */}}
#### {{if $event.IsRecovered}}<font color="#008800">✅ {{$event.RuleName}}</font>{{else}}<font color="#FF0000">🚨 {{$event.RuleName}}</font>{{end}}

{{/* The template field for Feishu feishucard (determines the card header color block) */}}
{{if $event.IsRecovered}}turquoise{{else}}{{if eq $event.Severity 1}}red{{else if eq $event.Severity 2}}orange{{else}}grey{{end}}{{end}}

Feishu cards only recognize enumerated colors: red / orange / yellow / green / turquoise / blue / indigo / purple / carmine / grey; hex color codes are ignored.

8) "Show the alert duration"

{{$duration := sub now.Unix $event.FirstTriggerTime}}
{{- if $event.IsRecovered}}{{$duration = sub $event.LastEvalTime $event.FirstTriggerTime}}{{end}}
- **Duration**: {{humanizeDurationInterface $duration}}

Triggered state: current time - FirstTriggerTime; recovered state: LastEvalTime - FirstTriggerTime. humanizeDurationInterface outputs a human-readable form like 1h3m5s.

9) "Embed a tag value in a URL, avoiding spaces/special characters breaking the link"

[View Dashboard]({{.domain}}/dashboards/123?ident={{urlquery $event.TargetIdent}}&host={{urlquery (index $labels "host")}})
[Mute 1h]({{.domain}}/alert-mutes/add?__event_id={{$event.Id}})

Stuffing {{$event.TargetIdent}} directly into a URL will, when it contains spaces, Chinese, or &, get double-escaped on the IM side (typical symptom: & becomes & and the link won't open). Wrap every variable that goes into a URL query in urlquery.

10) "Tag keys containing hyphens/dots/Chinese — use index to fetch"

- **Application**: {{index $labels "app-name"}}
- **K8s Cluster**: {{index $labels "k8s.io/cluster"}}
- **Business Dashboard**: {{index $event.AnnotationsJSON "dashboard_url"}}

$labels.app-name will be parsed by Go template as "app minus name" and is bound to fail. As long as a key is not pure alphanumerics plus underscore, always fetch it with index; the same goes for Annotations.

11) "Fallback for abnormal values (+Inf / NaN)"

- **Trigger Value**: {{if or (eq $event.TriggerValue "+Inf") (eq $event.TriggerValue "NaN")}}N/A{{else}}{{formatDecimal $event.TriggerValue 2}}{{end}}

A /0 in PromQL returns +Inf, and an aggregation over missing data returns NaN. Rendered directly into Feishu/DingTalk they appear as literal +Inf, which looks like a bug.

12) "In Edge mode the event Id=0 — degrade the redirect link"

{{if gt $event.Id 0}}
[Event Detail]({{.domain}}/share/alert-his-events/{{$event.Id}})
{{else}}
(Edge-mode event — view details on the central server)
{{end}}

Known issue: in Edge mode the event Id is written asynchronously, so at render time it is 0, and the redirect link would land on /alert-his-events/0 (404). Add a gt $event.Id 0 guard at the template layer.

13) "Merge and display multiple alerts"

{{range $i, $e := .events}}
{{- if $i}}
---
{{end -}}
- Rule: {{$e.RuleName}}
- Target: {{$e.TargetIdent}}
- Trigger Value: {{$e.TriggerValue}}
- Time: {{timeformat $e.TriggerTime}}
{{end}}

In the default scenario one notification has exactly one event, and the template renders with $event = index .events 0. When one notification aggregates multiple events (subscription aggregation, batch send) you must range .events to expand them.

Key Considerations

1. html/template HTML-escapes. Tags such as <font> and <at> in DingTalk/Feishu/Lark must be wrapped in unescaped or placed in content where Go template recognizes them itself. Email uses text/template and is not subject to this.
2. TriggerValue is a string: to compare magnitudes directly use parseDuration/custom logic; for normal display-only purposes leave it as is.
3. Do not manually write headers like {{$events := .events}} — the system injects them automatically.
4. Don't drop the recovery branch: rules with NotifyRecovered=1 reuse the same template to send the recovery message.
5. Hyphens/dots in tag keys: $labels.agent_hostname works, but $labels.app-name does not — use index $labels "app-name".
6. All time fields are unix seconds (int64); don't use {{$event.TriggerTime}} directly as text — use timeformat or toTime.
7. Merging multiple alerts: .events may have multiple entries; the default DingTalk/Feishu templates only render entry 0 ($event); if the user wants a batch display, use {{range .events}}.
8. Use .domain for links: don't hardcode http://localhost:17000, otherwise switching environments breaks it.

Common Mistakes

• ❌ {{$event.TriggerValue | printf "%.2f"}} — for printf, the first argument is the format, and TriggerValue is a string.

• ✅ {{formatDecimal $event.TriggerValue 2}}

• ❌ Displaying {{$event.TriggerTime}} directly — it outputs unix seconds.

• ✅ {{timeformat $event.TriggerTime}}

• ❌ Writing <font color="red"> in DingTalk without escaping — html/template will escape it into <font>.

• ✅ Put it inside a conditional branch (Go template's {{if}} branch literals do not get the inner tags HTML-escaped), or wrap the whole thing in {{unescaped "…"}}. Nightingale's official DingTalk template writes <font> directly and it works, because the outer area is a plain-text section (not inside an attribute value) — just follow the official sample.

• ❌ Forgetting to split the recovery branch — the trigger time in a recovery notification is misleading.

• ✅ Wrap all dynamic content first with {{if $event.IsRecovered}}…{{else}}…{{end}}.

• ❌ {{if .IsRecoverd}} — a missing e in the spelling. Go template silently takes the else branch for a nonexistent field (without erroring), so the consequence is that the recovery notification sends the triggered-state copy, and it is very hard to track down.

• ✅ {{if $event.IsRecovered}}. Similar spelling traps: Resoverd, Recoverd, recovered (lowercase) all fail.

• ❌ {{if lt $value 10}} or {{if gt $event.TriggerValue 80}} — TriggerValue is a string; comparing with lt/gt against a number will report incompatible types, or be interpreted as a string lexicographic comparison and yield a wrong result. The current version has no built-in toFloat helper. Put numeric threshold checks back into the alert rule's condition expression, and keep the template layer for display only.

• ❌ Building a URL with ?ident={{$event.TargetIdent}} directly — a TargetIdent containing spaces/Chinese/& will break the link.

• ✅ ?ident={{urlquery $event.TargetIdent}}, pass every variable that goes into a URL query through urlquery.

• ❌ {{$labels.app-name}} or {{$labels.k8s.io/cluster}} — keys containing hyphens/dots/slashes fail to parse.

• ✅ {{index $labels "app-name"}}, {{index $labels "k8s.io/cluster"}}.