Getting Started with Horux in 5 Minutes

What We'll Build

In this guide, we're going to set up monitoring for a real service in about 5 minutes. Here's what you'll have by the end:

• A health check monitoring your API endpoint
• An alert that notifies you when things go wrong
• Your first custom metric being tracked

No complex configuration files. No YAML hell. Just straightforward monitoring.

Before We Start

You'll need:

• A Horux account (grab one at horux.io/beta-access)
• An API endpoint to monitor (or use our test endpoint)
• About 5 minutes of your time

Got everything? Let's go.

Step 1: Create Your First Project (30 seconds)

After signing in, you'll land on the dashboard. Click the "New Project" button in the top right.

Give it a name like "Production" or "My Awesome App". The name doesn't matter much—you can always change it later. Hit create.

Projects in Horux are how you organize your services. Most teams have one for each environment (Production, Staging, Development). Keep it simple for now.

Step 2: Add a Service (30 seconds)

Inside your project, click "Add Service". This is the thing you're actually monitoring—your API, your website, your worker process, whatever.

Let's call it "API" and give it a description if you want. The important part is picking tags. Tags help you filter and organize later, so throw in something like production and backend.

Click create. That's it. You now have a service set up.

Step 3: Create Your First Monitor (2 minutes)

This is where it gets interesting. Click on your service, then hit "Create Monitor".

Choose "HTTP/HTTPS Check" from the monitor types. Here's what to fill in:

Basic Setup:

• Name: "API Health Check"
• URL: Your API's health endpoint (or use https://api.example.com/health)
• Check Interval: 60 seconds (check every minute)

What to Check:

• Expected Status Code: 200
• Timeout: 10 seconds
• Follow Redirects: On (usually what you want)

Click "Create Monitor" and... boom. Horux is now checking your API every minute.

You'll see the first result appear in about 60 seconds. If it's green, you're good. If it's red, well, you might want to check your API.

Step 4: Set Up Your First Alert (1 minute)

A monitor without alerts is just data. Let's make it useful.

On your monitor page, click "Create Alert". Here's the simplest useful alert:

Alert Configuration:

• Name: "API is Down"
• Condition: When status is not healthy for 3 consecutive checks
• Notification Channel: Email (your account email)

That's it. Now if your API fails 3 health checks in a row (3 minutes), you'll get an email. No noise from single blips, but you'll know if there's a real problem.

Want to get fancy? You can also alert on response time:

• When response time > 500ms for 5 consecutive checks

But let's keep it simple for now.

Step 5: Push Your First Metric (1 minute)

Let's say you want to track how many API requests you're handling. Here's how to send that metric to Horux.

First, grab your API key from Settings → API Tokens. Create a new token with write access.

Then, in your application code:

import { HoruxClient } from '@horux/client';

const horux = new HoruxClient({
  apiToken: process.env.HORUX_API_TOKEN,
  serviceId: 'your-service-id'
});

// Increment request counter
await horux.metrics.counter('api.requests.total', 1, {
  method: 'GET',
  status: '200'
});

// Record response time
await horux.metrics.gauge('api.response_time', responseTimeMs, {
  endpoint: '/users'
});

That's it. Your metrics are now flowing into Horux. Head to the Metrics tab on your service page to see them visualized.

What You Just Built

In 5 minutes, you now have:

1. ✅ A health check running every minute
2. ✅ An alert that emails you when things break
3. ✅ Custom metrics tracking your application performance

Not bad for 5 minutes of work.

What's Next?

Now that you've got the basics down, here are some things to explore:

More Monitor Types:

• SSL certificate monitoring (never let a cert expire again)
• TCP port checks (database connectivity, cache servers)
• Cron job monitoring (heartbeat-based, super useful)

Better Alerts:

• Multiple notification channels (Slack, Discord, webhooks)
• Escalation paths (notify the team, then the manager)
• Maintenance windows (silence alerts during deployments)

Advanced Metrics:

• Create custom dashboards
• Set up metric-based alerts
• Track business KPIs alongside technical metrics

Log Aggregation:

• Send your application logs to Horux
• Search with full-text and structured queries
• Correlate logs with metrics and traces

Common Questions

Q: How much does this cost?

We charge based on data volume, so you only pay for what you use. The setup we just did would cost very little since you're only monitoring one endpoint. Check our pricing page for details.

Q: Can I monitor multiple endpoints?

Absolutely. Create as many monitors as you need. Each monitor is independent.

Q: What if my API requires authentication?

Set custom headers in the monitor configuration. You can pass API keys, bearer tokens, whatever you need.

Q: What happens if I exceed my plan limits?

We'll email you before that happens. You can either upgrade your plan or we'll queue excess data (we won't drop it).

Wrapping Up

Monitoring doesn't have to be complicated. You just set up production-grade monitoring in 5 minutes. That's the whole point of Horux—making monitoring accessible without dumbing it down.

Got questions? Hit us up at contact@horux.io or check out the full documentation for more advanced features.

Happy monitoring! 🚀