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Section 2 · Create your first watcher

Calibration builds checks and a baseline from your description and data sources, and the watcher runs those checks on its schedule.

Estimated time: 1 min

How calibration works

When you create a watcher, Assistant starts calibration. Calibration builds checks from your description and data sources, plus a baseline that each run compares your telemetry against. Calibration runs in the background.

Depending on your data sources, checks can include PromQL, LogQL, TraceQL metrics, BigQuery SQL, and Grafana-managed alert checks. Assistant might ask you questions during calibration, and only the person who started calibration can see and answer them. If calibration stops, it explains why, so you can correct the description or data sources and try again.

What happens when calibration succeeds

When calibration succeeds, the watcher starts monitoring automatically and runs on a schedule, every 10 minutes by default. You can also trigger an extra run at any time, or pause scheduled runs without deleting the watcher.

Each watcher keeps the following:

  • Its goal, baseline, and saved checks. Calibrated checks are read-only, so to change them, you recalibrate.
  • The issues it’s tracking, with the evidence behind each one.
  • A history of recent runs, each with its own report.

The hands-on learning path walks you through calibration, running the watcher, and reading a run’s report.