# Alert on queue depth and consumer lag

A queue nobody is watching, given alerts on depth and lag that are back-tested against a real backlog.

Category: Queues, jobs, and async work
Source: https://letsship.ai/use-cases/alert-on-queue-depth-and-lag
Published: 2026-08-25

## Goal

Add alerting on queue depth and consumer lag.

## Acceptance criteria

- Both depth and lag are alerted separately
- The rules fire when replayed against a real backlog window
- They stay quiet across a normal window
- They route to the rotation that owns the consumer

## What lands as proof

Replays against a backlog window and a normal one, showing the rules distinguish between them.

## Prompt

Copy this to an agent to open the ticket:

```text
Create a Linear issue in my team and assign it to the SHIP agent.

Title: Add depth and lag alerts for {queue}

Description: Add alerting on queue depth and consumer lag.

Acceptance criteria:
- Both depth and lag are alerted separately
- The rules fire when replayed against a real backlog window
- They stay quiet across a normal window
- They route to the rotation that owns the consumer

Before you create the issue, check which of this repository's queues have no depth alerting and replace {queue}.
```

## Questions

### What does the agent actually change?

The ticket is scoped to one outcome: add alerting on queue depth and consumer lag. Work that serves that outcome is in scope, and anything outside it is left for a separate ticket, so the pull request stays reviewable.

### How do I know the work is done?

The pull request carries the evidence, not only the diff. Here that means alert fires against a replayed backlog, so a reviewer can confirm the result without reproducing the work locally.

### How much oversight does this need?

The run stops once the plan is written. Somebody reads the approach and approves it before any code exists, which is the cheapest moment to redirect the work.