Notifications & Watches
Overview
Describe what you care about in natural language, and Fly notifies you in Slack when it happens.
- “Notify me when a new release is created for payment-service”
- “Watch for releases that include Docker image changes”
- “Alert me when a release image is pulled to production”
Fly uses AI to semantically match incoming events against your watches – no keywords, no filters, just natural language.
How Watches Work
A watch is a free-text description of what you want to be notified about. Fly evaluates every incoming event against your active watches using semantic matching, not exact keywords.
This means:
- “notify me when a release is created for payment-service” matches a release event from the payment-service repository
- “alert when an image is pulled to production” matches an image pull event targeting the production environment
- Watches that mean the same thing are automatically deduplicated
Watches are scoped to your Fly team and apply to all events across your team.
Supported Event Types
| Event Type | Example Watch |
|---|---|
| Release created | “Notify me when a new release is created for payment-service” |
| Image pull | “Notify me when a release image is pulled to production” |
How Matching Works
Fly evaluates incoming events against your watches using AI semantic matching. The matching is many-to-many: one event can trigger multiple watches, and one watch can match multiple events.
For each match, Fly generates a human-readable notification explaining what happened and why the watch was triggered.
Watch Notifications
When an event matches a watch, Fly sends a rich Slack notification with:
- AI-generated notification text – A clear, concise summary of what happened and why it matters
- Event details – Structured metadata about the event
- Action buttons – Direct links to the relevant page in Fly Web
Release Notifications
When a CI workflow completes and creates a release, subscribed channels receive the release title, description, artifacts produced, and a link to the full release. An AI-generated summary is posted as a threaded reply.
Environment Image Pull Alerts
When a release image is pulled to a connected environment, subscribed channels receive which image was pulled, which environment pulled it, and a link to the environment.
Slack Integration
Notifications are delivered through Slack. Here’s how to set it up.
Installing the Slack App
- Navigate to Settings in Fly Web
- Click Connect to Slack
- Authorize the Fly Slack app in your Slack workspace
Account Linking
Each team member links their Slack identity to their Fly account:
- Open the Fly Slack app (Apps section in Slack sidebar)
- Go to the Home tab
- Click Connect to Fly
- Authenticate with your Fly credentials
Once linked, Fly responses are scoped to your account and permissions.
/fly Slash Commands
All Fly functionality in Slack is accessed through:
/fly <prompt>Ask Fly anything:
/fly what's running in production?/fly show me the latest release from payment-service/fly find the release where I fixed the login bug
Check status:
/fly status
Manage watches:
/fly notify me when a new release is created for payment-service/fly list my watches/fly remove the watch about image pulls
Chat with Fly in Slack
Beyond slash commands, you can chat with Fly directly:
- Direct messages – Send a DM to the Fly Slack app
- Assistant threads – Open the Fly assistant from Slack’s top bar
Conversations maintain context across messages within a thread.
App Home Tab
The Fly Slack app’s Home tab shows connection status, quick start guide, available commands, and useful links.
From Your Coding Agent
Your coding agent can create, list, and remove watches using natural language – the same prompts you’d use in Slack.
“Notify me when a new release is created for payment-service”
“List my watches”
“Remove the watch about Docker deployments”
In Fly Web
The Notification Manager in Fly Web gives you a visual overview of your active watches, recent matches, and watch history. You can review which events triggered notifications and manage your watches from the settings.
Example
Watch: “Alert me when a release image is pulled to production”
Event: “Docker image payment-service:v2.4.1 pulled to production environment”
Result: Fly sends a Slack notification with the image details and a link to the environment in Fly Web.
Next Steps
- Releases → - Release events that trigger notifications
- Runtime Environments → - Environment events for image pull alerts