HTTP Checks

HTTP checks are the foundation of Pulsar monitoring. They verify that your site is accessible and responding correctly.

How It Works

Every check interval, Pulsar sends an HTTP request to your site and measures:

• Response Time - How long the server takes to respond
• Status Code - The HTTP status code returned
• Availability - Whether the request succeeded or failed

Check Types

Health Check

A simple HTTP GET request to verify your site is responding. This is enabled by default for all sites.

Monitored:

• HTTP status code (expects 2xx)
• Response time
• Connection errors

Content Check

Verify that specific content appears on the page. Useful for detecting deployment issues or content changes.

Expected content: "Add to Cart"

Status Determination

Condition	Status
HTTP 2xx response	Up
HTTP 4xx/5xx response	Down
Connection timeout	Down
DNS resolution failure	Down
SSL certificate error	Down

Response Time Thresholds

Pulsar tracks response times to help identify performance issues:

Response Time	Indicator
< 500ms	Excellent
500ms - 1s	Good
1s - 2s	Slow
> 2s	Critical

Best Practices

1. Monitor critical pages - Add checks for your homepage, category pages, and checkout
2. Set appropriate timeouts - Allow enough time for legitimate slow responses
3. Use content checks - Verify key elements render correctly
4. Review failed checks - Investigate patterns in failures

Troubleshooting

False Positives

If you're seeing intermittent failures:

• Check if your CDN or WAF is blocking monitoring requests
• Verify DNS resolution is consistent
• Review server logs for the failed request times

Slow Response Times

If response times are consistently high:

• Check server resource utilization
• Review database query performance
• Consider CDN or caching configuration