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What You’ll Learn

This guide walks you through creating your first Stack, adding services to monitor, and customizing Stack settings for your needs.

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Before You Start

Prerequisites
  • Active StatusStack account
  • Access to the customer dashboard
  • Team membership (or create your own team)

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Creating Your First Stack

1

Navigate to Stacks

From your dashboard, click Monitoring → Stacks in the left sidebarNavigate to Stacks
2

Click Create Stack

Click the “Create Stack” button in the top-right cornerCreate Stack Button
3

Fill in Basic Information

Enter your Stack details:
FieldDescriptionExample
NameDescriptive name for your Stack”Production Infrastructure”
DescriptionOptional details about the Stack”Monitors all production services”
TeamWhich team owns this Stack”Engineering Team”
SlugURL-friendly identifier (auto-generated)production-infrastructure
The slug is used in your public status page URL: statusstack.com/status/production-infrastructure
4

Configure Visibility

Choose who can see this Stack:
Public Stack
  • Visible to anyone with the link
  • Appears in public directory (optional)
  • Perfect for customer-facing status pages
Use for: External services, customer portals, public APIs
5

Customize Branding (Optional)

Make your Stack match your brand:
  • Logo - Upload your company/project logo
  • Primary Color - Main accent color for the status page
  • Favicon - Small icon for browser tabs
Branding settings are available on Pro and Enterprise plans
6

Create Stack

Click Create to save your StackStack Created Successfully

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Stack Configuration Options

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Basic Settings

The display name for your StackBest Practices:
  • Be descriptive: “Production API Services” vs “Stack 1”
  • Include environment: “Production”, “Staging”, “Development”
  • Use client names for MSPs: “Client: Acme Corp”
Examples:
  • ✅ Production Infrastructure
  • ✅ Staging Environment
  • ✅ Client: Acme Corp Production
  • ❌ Stack 1
  • ❌ Test
Optional details about what this Stack monitorsGood descriptions:
  • “Monitors all production services including API, database, and CDN”
  • “Development environment for testing new features”
  • “Client-facing services for Acme Corporation”
Use for:
  • Documenting what’s being monitored
  • Explaining the purpose to team members
  • Providing context for clients (MSP)
Which team owns and can manage this Stack
  • All Stack resources (components, monitors) belong to the team
  • Team members can view and edit based on their role
  • Cannot be changed after creation (must delete and recreate)
Tip: Plan your team structure before creating Stacks
URL-friendly identifier for your Stack
  • Auto-generated from the Stack name
  • Used in public status page URL
  • Must be unique across StatusStack
  • Can be customized (Pro/Enterprise only)
Examples:
  • production-infrastructure → statusstack.com/status/production-infrastructure
  • acme-corp → statusstack.com/status/acme-corp

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Advanced Settings

Automatically subscribe all team members to email updatesWhen enabled:
  • New team members automatically get email notifications
  • Useful for critical production Stacks
  • Can be overridden per user
When disabled:
  • Team members manually subscribe
  • Good for less critical Stacks
  • Reduces email noise
Display scheduled maintenance windows on status page
  • Show upcoming maintenance
  • Automatically set components to “Maintenance” status
  • Notify subscribers before maintenance begins
Use for:
  • Planned deployments
  • Infrastructure upgrades
  • Regular maintenance windows
Enable manual incident creation and updates
  • Create incidents for outages
  • Post updates as situations develop
  • Mark incidents as resolved
  • Display incident timeline on status page
Best for:
  • Customer-facing status pages
  • Internal incident management
  • Post-mortem documentation
Use your own domain for the status page
  • status.yourcompany.com instead of statusstack.com/status/slug
  • Requires DNS configuration
  • Free SSL certificate included
Setup:
  1. Add CNAME record: status.yourcompany.com → custom.statusstack.com
  2. Add custom domain in Stack settings
  3. Verify DNS propagation
  4. SSL certificate auto-generated

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Adding Services to Your Stack

After creating a Stack, add services to monitor:

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Option 1: Add Third-Party Services

Monitor popular services like AWS, GitHub, Cloudflare:
1

Open Stack Details

Click on your newly created Stack
2

Click Add Component

In the Components section, click “Add Component”
3

Search for Service

Browse or search for the service:
  • Type service name (e.g., “GitHub”)
  • Browse by category (Cloud, Development, SaaS)
  • View popular services
Search for Service
4

Select Components

Choose which components to monitor:Example for GitHub:
  • ☑️ Git Operations
  • ☑️ API Requests
  • ☑️ Webhooks
  • ☑️ GitHub Pages
  • ☑️ GitHub Actions
Select only the components you actually use to reduce noise
5

Add to Stack

Click “Add Selected Components” to start monitoringComponents Added

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Option 2: Add Custom Monitors

Monitor your own websites and APIs:
1

Navigate to Website Monitors

Go to Monitoring → Website Monitors
2

Create Monitor

Click “Create Monitor” and configure:
Name: Production API Health
URL: https://api.yoursite.com/health
Check Interval: 60 seconds
Expected Status: 200
Timeout: 10 seconds
3

Assign to Stack

In the “Stacks” field, select your Stack
4

Save Monitor

Click Create to start monitoring
See Custom Monitoring Guide for detailed monitor configuration.

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Stack Organization Patterns

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Pattern 1: Environment-Based Stacks

Organize by deployment environment: 
📦 Production Stack
  ├─ Production API
  ├─ Production Database
  ├─ Production CDN
  └─ Third-party services (Stripe, SendGrid)

📦 Staging Stack
  ├─ Staging API
  ├─ Staging Database
  └─ Third-party test accounts

📦 Development Stack
  └─ Dev API
Best for: Development teams, SaaS companies

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Pattern 2: Service-Based Stacks

Organize by service type: 
📦 Core API Services Stack
  ├─ Auth API
  ├─ User API
  ├─ Payment API
  └─ Notification API

📦 Infrastructure Stack
  ├─ AWS Services
  ├─ Cloudflare CDN
  ├─ MongoDB Atlas
  └─ Redis Cloud

📦 External Dependencies Stack
  ├─ Stripe
  ├─ SendGrid
  ├─ Twilio
  └─ GitHub
Best for: Microservices architecture, large platforms

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Pattern 3: Client-Based Stacks (MSP)

Organize by client: 
📦 Client: Acme Corp Production
  ├─ Acme Website
  ├─ Acme API
  └─ Acme Database

📦 Client: Acme Corp Staging
  └─ Acme Staging Environment

📦 Client: Beta Inc Production
  ├─ Beta Website
  └─ Beta Services
Best for: MSPs, agencies, consultants See MSP Setup Guide for MSP-specific workflows.

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Stack Templates

Speed up Stack creation with pre-built templates:

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Using Stack Templates

1

Browse Templates

When creating a Stack, click “Use Template”
2

Select Template

Choose from popular templates:
  • SaaS Starter - Common SaaS dependencies
  • E-Commerce - Payment, shipping, email services
  • Development - GitHub, CI/CD, hosting services
  • Infrastructure - Cloud providers, CDN, monitoring
3

Customize

Review and customize the pre-selected components
4

Create Stack

Click Create from Template

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Creating Custom Templates (Enterprise)

Save your Stack configuration as a template:
  1. Open an existing Stack
  2. Click “Save as Template”
  3. Give template a name and description
  4. Template becomes available to your organization
  5. Reuse for new clients or environments

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Best Practices

Use consistent, descriptive namesGood examples:
  • Production - API Services
  • Staging - Full Stack
  • Client: Acme - Production
  • Development - Backend Only
Bad examples:
  • Stack 1
  • Test
  • Misc
  • Stuff
Only monitor what you use
  • Don’t add every component from a Source
  • Focus on services critical to your operations
  • Reduce noise and improve signal-to-noise ratio
  • Makes status pages more relevant to users
Find the right level of detailToo many Stacks:
  • Production API User Service
  • Production API Auth Service
  • Production API Payment Service
  • Result: Hard to get overall picture
Too few Stacks:
  • All Services
  • Result: Hard to pinpoint issues
Just right:
  • Production Services (all production)
  • Infrastructure (hosting, CDN, DNS)
  • Third-Party Dependencies (Stripe, SendGrid)
Keep Stacks up to date
  • Remove deprecated services
  • Add new services as you integrate them
  • Update Stack descriptions
  • Review and update branding
  • Archive unused Stacks

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Troubleshooting

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Can’t Create Stack

Possible causes:
  1. Quota reached - Upgrade your plan
  2. Duplicate slug - Stack with this slug already exists
  3. No team access - You must be a member of at least one team
Solutions:
  • Check your plan limits
  • Try a different Stack name (generates different slug)
  • Contact admin to be added to a team

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Stack Not Showing on Dashboard

Check:
  1. You’re viewing the correct team
  2. Stack visibility settings
  3. You have permission to view the Stack
Solutions:
  • Switch teams in the dashboard header
  • Ask Stack owner to verify visibility settings
  • Contact team admin for access

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Components Not Updating

Possible causes:
  1. Source temporarily unavailable - Wait for next polling cycle (1-5 min)
  2. Component deprecated - Service may have changed their status page structure
  3. Connection issues - Check StatusStack’s own status
Solutions:
  • Wait 5 minutes and refresh
  • Remove and re-add the component
  • Contact support if issue persists

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Next Steps

Adding Services

Detailed guide on adding components and monitors

Notification Setup

Configure alerts for Stack status changes

Status Pages

Customize and share your public status page

Stack Concepts

Deep dive into Stack architecture