How to Set Up API Outage Notifications in 5 Minutes

#webdev #devops #tutorial #api

Your app depends on third-party APIs. When they go down, you need to know immediately — not 30 minutes later when your users start complaining on Twitter.

Here's how to set up instant outage notifications for any API in under 5 minutes, completely free.

Why You Need API Outage Alerts

Most teams monitor their own infrastructure but completely ignore third-party dependencies. Then this happens:

Stripe's API starts returning 500 errors
Your checkout flow breaks
Your monitoring shows YOUR servers are fine
You spend an hour debugging perfectly working code
Someone checks Twitter and discovers Stripe has been down for 45 minutes

Sound familiar?

Option 1: Discord Webhook (2 min setup)

Open Discord → Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks
Click New Webhook, name it "API Alerts"
Copy the webhook URL
Go to apistatuscheck.com and register it

You'll get messages like:

🔴 OUTAGE: OpenAI API
Status: operational → major outage
Check: https://apistatuscheck.com/api/openai

🟢 RECOVERY: OpenAI API  
Duration: 47 minutes

Option 2: Slack Webhook (3 min setup)

Go to api.slack.com/apps
Create app → Enable Incoming Webhooks
Add webhook to your #api-alerts channel
Register at apistatuscheck.com

Option 3: RSS Feed (Works with anything)

https://apistatuscheck.com/feed.xml

Works with Slack's built-in RSS, Zapier, IFTTT, email clients — anything that reads RSS.

Slack built-in:

/feed subscribe https://apistatuscheck.com/feed.xml

Option 4: JSON API (Custom integrations)

curl https://apistatuscheck.com/api/status/openai

Build it into your app:

async function checkDependency(apiName) {
  const res = await fetch(
    `https://apistatuscheck.com/api/status/${apiName}`
  );
  const data = await res.json();

  if (data.status !== 'operational') {
    console.warn(`⚠️ ${apiName} is ${data.status}`);
    return false;
  }
  return true;
}

// Before calling OpenAI
if (await checkDependency('openai')) {
  // Proceed with API call
} else {
  // Use fallback provider
}

Or a pre-deploy gate:

# Don't deploy if critical APIs are down
STATUS=$(curl -s https://apistatuscheck.com/api/status/stripe | jq -r '.status')
if [ "$STATUS" != "operational" ]; then
  echo "❌ Stripe is down — skipping deploy"
  exit 1
fi

Option 5: Status Badges (Passive monitoring)

Drop these in your README:

![OpenAI](https://apistatuscheck.com/api/badge/openai)
![Stripe](https://apistatuscheck.com/api/badge/stripe)
![AWS](https://apistatuscheck.com/api/badge/aws)

Which Should You Pick?

Method	Best For	Setup	Real-time?
Discord webhook	Dev teams	2 min	✅
Slack webhook	Slack teams	3 min	✅
RSS feed	Any tool	1 min	⚠️ Varies
JSON API	Custom	10 min	✅
Status badges	Visibility	1 min	✅