Integrating New Relic Alerts with Discord: A Journey from Frustration to Success

Introduction

Setting up alerts for critical application issues is essential, and tools like New Relic make it easy to monitor application performance. However, New Relic doesn’t offer a direct integration with Discord, which can be frustrating when you want real-time alerts in your Discord channels.

When I started integrating New Relic Alerts with Discord, I hit multiple roadblocks, from webhook failures to incorrect payload structures. But after several iterations and experiments, I found the best approach that works seamlessly. Here’s a story of my debugging journey and how you can quickly set up New Relic alerts for Discord.

Step 1: Setting Up New Relic Alerts

Before integrating with Discord, I first needed to create an alert condition in New Relic. Here’s how:

• Go to Alerts > Alert Conditions > Create Alert Condition.

Select Guided Mode.

• Choose the APM service and select Error Rate as the metric.

• Set the window size to 5 minutes and a threshold of 1% error rate in the last 5 minutes.

• Add a meaningful name, title, and description.

• Assign the alert to a default initial policy.

Great! Now I had an alert condition in place. The next challenge? Getting notifications to Discord.

---

Step 2: Trying Webhooks (The Wrong Way 😞)

New Relic provides several notification options, such as Slack, Webhooks, AWS EventBridge, but not Discord.

I found two promising documents:

New Relic Forum - Discord Webhook Setup

Microideation Blog on New Relic Alerts to Discord

Both documents suggested a workaround: use a Slack-compatible webhook by modifying the Discord Webhook URL like this:

<YOUR_DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL>/slack

I was hopeful, but when I tried setting up Slack in New Relic, it only showed a login page for Slack authentication. 😤

No option to manually enter the webhook!

I even tried using New Relic CLI, but it didn’t work either.

Clearly, the Slack method was a dead end. Time for Plan B. 🚀

---

Step 3: Using AWS EventBridge + Lambda (The Long Way 😅)

Since the webhook approach was failing, I thought of another workaround:✔️ Use AWS EventBridge to catch New Relic alert events. ✔️ Send these events to an AWS Lambda function. ✔️ Convert the payload to a Discord-compatible format and send the alert.

Setting Up EventBridge

Create an EventBridge Partner Event Bus using New Relic:

aws.partner/newrelic.com/<NEWRELIC_ACC_ID>/acc

Create an event rule:

Name: newrelic_alerts_to_discord

Event Pattern:

{
  "source": [{
    "prefix": "aws.partner/newrelic.com"
  }]
}

Target: AWS Lambda Function

Lambda Function to Send Alerts to Discord

Here’s the Python Lambda function I wrote:

import json
import requests
import os
DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL = os.getenv("DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL")  # Set in Lambda environment variables
def lambda_handler(event, context):
    try:
        print("Received Event:", json.dumps(event, indent=2))
        event_detail = event.get("detail", {})
        # Extract fields
        alert_condition = ", ".join(event_detail.get("alertConditionNames", ["N/A"]))
        alert_description = ", ".join(event_detail.get("alertConditionDescriptions", ["N/A"]))
        impacted_entities = ", ".join(event_detail.get("impactedEntities", ["N/A"]))
        state = event_detail.get("state", "N/A")
        created_at = event_detail.get("createdAt", "N/A")
        # Format message for Discord
        discord_payload = {
            "content": "🚨 **New Relic Alert** 🚨",
            "embeds": [
                {
                    "title": alert_condition,
                    "description": (
                        f"**Condition Description:** {alert_description}\n"
                        f"**Impacted Entities:** {impacted_entities}\n"
                        f"**State:** {state}\n"
                        f"**Created At:** {created_at}"
                    ),
                    "color": 15158332
                }
            ]
        }
        response = requests.post(DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL, json=discord_payload)
        if response.status_code == 204:
            return {"status": "Success"}
        else:
            return {"status": "Failed", "error": response.text}
    except Exception as e:
        return {"status": "Error", "message": str(e)}

It worked! 🎉 But, let’s be real – this was too complex for a simple webhook notification.

---

Step 4: The Best Approach – Using Webhooks the Right Way ✅

For Discord Webhooks to work, the JSON payload must include content or embeds. Without these keywords, Discord will reject the payload!

Final JSON Payload for Discord Webhook

{
  "content": "🚨 **New Relic Alert** 🚨",
  "embeds": [
    {
      "title": "{{ accumulations.conditionName.[0] }}",
      "description": "**Condition Description:** {{#each accumulations.conditionDescription}}{{#unless @first}}, {{/unless}}{{escape this}}{{/each}}\n**Impacted Entities:** {{#each entitiesData.names}}{{#unless @first}}, {{/unless}}{{this}}{{/each}}\n**State:** {{state}}\n",
      "color": 15158332,
      "footer": {
        "text": "{{timezone createdAt 'Asia/Kolkata'}}"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Why This Works?

✔️ Uses Handlebars syntax to format the payload correctly. ✔️ Includes the required content field, making Discord accept the message. ✔️ No need for EventBridge or Lambda – pure webhook solution! ✔️ Works seamlessly with New Relic webhook notifications.

---

Conclusion

💡 Lesson Learned: Always check the webhook payload format before building unnecessary workarounds! 😅

By correctly structuring the JSON using Handlebars syntax and ensuring the presence of content or embeds, I was able to directly send New Relic alerts to Discord without using AWS services.

🚀 If you’re setting up New Relic to Discord alerts, follow Solution 2 – it’s simple, efficient, and works perfectly!