Alerting docs: Update Intro - alert rule labels and annotations (#88230)

* Update `Labels & Annotations` * Complete labels and annotations * Update docs/sources/alerting/fundamentals/alert-rules/annotation-label.md Co-authored-by: brendamuir <100768211+brendamuir@users.noreply.github.com> * Update docs/sources/alerting/fundamentals/alert-rules/annotation-label.md Co-authored-by: brendamuir <100768211+brendamuir@users.noreply.github.com> * Update docs/sources/alerting/fundamentals/alert-rules/annotation-label.md Co-authored-by: brendamuir <100768211+brendamuir@users.noreply.github.com> --------- Co-authored-by: brendamuir <100768211+brendamuir@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-08-26 21:37:31 -05:00 · 2024-05-24 10:09:35 +02:00
parent 01d5744433
commit 3d7fc8c927
4 changed files with 164 additions and 86 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+---
+labels:
+  products:
+    - enterprise
+    - oss
+title: 'How label matching works'
+---
+
+{{< collapse title="How label matching works" >}}
+
+Use [labels](ref:alert-labels) and label matchers to link alert rules to [notification policies](ref:notification-policies) and [silences](ref:silences). This allows for a flexible way to manage your alert instances, specify which policy should handle them, and which alerts to silence.
+
+A label matchers consists of 3 distinct parts, the **label**, the **value** and the **operator**.
+
+- The **Label** field is the name of the label to match. It must exactly match the label name.
+
+- The **Value** field matches against the corresponding value for the specified **Label** name. How it matches depends on the **Operator** value.
+
+- The **Operator** field is the operator to match against the label value. The available operators are:
+
+  | Operator | Description                                        |
+  | -------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
+  | `=`      | Select labels that are exactly equal to the value. |
+  | `!=`     | Select labels that are not equal to the value.     |
+  | `=~`     | Select labels that regex-match the value.          |
+  | `!~`     | Select labels that do not regex-match the value.   |
+
+If you are using multiple label matchers, they are combined using the AND logical operator. This means that all matchers must match in order to link a rule to a policy.
+
+**Label matching example**
+
+If you define the following set of labels for your alert:
+
+`{ foo=bar, baz=qux, id=12 }`
+
+then:
+
+- A label matcher defined as `foo=bar` matches this alert rule.
+- A label matcher defined as `foo!=bar` does _not_ match this alert rule.
+- A label matcher defined as `id=~[0-9]+` matches this alert rule.
+- A label matcher defined as `baz!~[0-9]+` matches this alert rule.
+- Two label matchers defined as `foo=bar` and `id=~[0-9]+` match this alert rule.
+
+**Exclude labels**
+
+You can also write label matchers to exclude labels.
+
+Here is an example that shows how to exclude the label `Team`. You can choose between any of the values below to exclude labels.
+
+| Label  | Operator | Value |
+| ------ | -------- | ----- |
+| `team` | `=`      | `""`  |
+| `team` | `!~`     | `.+`  |
+| `team` | `=~`     | `^$`  |
+
+{{< /collapse >}}