Creating Stacks

What You’ll Learn

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

Before You Start

Prerequisites

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

Creating Your First Stack

Navigate to Stacks

From your dashboard, click Monitoring → Stacks in the left sidebar Navigate to Stacks

Click Create Stack

Click the “Create Stack” button in the top-right corner

Fill in Basic Information

Enter your Stack details:

Field	Description	Example
Name	Descriptive name for your Stack	”Production Infrastructure”
Description	Optional details about the Stack	”Monitors all production services”
Team	Which team owns this Stack	”Engineering Team”
Slug	URL-friendly identifier (auto-generated)	`production-infrastructure`

The slug is used in your public status page URL: statusstack.com/status/production-infrastructure

Configure Visibility

Choose who can see this Stack:

Public
Private
Password Protected

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

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

Create Stack

Click Create to save your Stack Stack Created Successfully

Stack Configuration Options

Basic Settings

Stack Name

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

Stack Description

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)

Team Assignment

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

Stack Slug

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

Advanced Settings

Scheduled Maintenance

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

Incident Tracking

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

Custom Domain (Pro/Enterprise)

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:

Add CNAME record: status.yourcompany.com → custom.statusstack.com
Add custom domain in Stack settings
Verify DNS propagation
SSL certificate auto-generated

Adding Services to Your Stack

After creating a Stack, add services to monitor:

Option 1: Add Third-Party Services

Monitor popular services like AWS, GitHub, Cloudflare:

Open Stack Details

Click on your newly created Stack

Click Add Component

In the Components section, click “Add Component”

Search for Service

Browse or search for the service:

Type service name (e.g., “GitHub”)
Browse by category (Cloud, Development, SaaS)
View popular services

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

Add to Stack

Click “Add Selected Components” to start monitoring Components Added

Option 2: Add Custom Monitors

Monitor your own websites and APIs:

Navigate to Website Monitors

Go to Monitoring → Website Monitors

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

Assign to Stack

In the “Stacks” field, select your Stack

Save Monitor

Click Create to start monitoring

See Custom Monitoring Guide for detailed monitor configuration.

Stack Organization Patterns

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

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

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.

Stack Templates

Speed up Stack creation with pre-built templates:

Using Stack Templates

Browse Templates

When creating a Stack, click “Use Template”

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

Customize

Review and customize the pre-selected components

Create Stack

Click Create from Template

Creating Custom Templates (Enterprise)

Save your Stack configuration as a template:

Open an existing Stack
Click “Save as Template”
Give template a name and description
Template becomes available to your organization
Reuse for new clients or environments

Best Practices

Naming Conventions

Use consistent, descriptive namesGood examples:

Production - API Services
Staging - Full Stack
Client: Acme - Production
Development - Backend Only

Bad examples:

Stack 1
Test
Misc
Stuff

Component Selection

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

Stack Granularity

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)

Regular Maintenance

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

Troubleshooting

Can’t Create Stack

Possible causes:

Quota reached - Upgrade your plan
Duplicate slug - Stack with this slug already exists
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

Stack Not Showing on Dashboard

Check:

You’re viewing the correct team
Stack visibility settings
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

Components Not Updating

Possible causes:

Source temporarily unavailable - Wait for next polling cycle (1-5 min)
Component deprecated - Service may have changed their status page structure
Connection issues - Check StatusStack’s own status

Solutions:

Wait 5 minutes and refresh
Remove and re-add the component
Contact support if issue persists

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

Get Started

Core Concepts

Dashboard Guides

MSP Features

Integrations

Embeddable Widgets

Account & Billing

What You’ll Learn

Before You Start

Creating Your First Stack

Stack Configuration Options

Basic Settings

Advanced Settings

Adding Services to Your Stack

Option 1: Add Third-Party Services

Option 2: Add Custom Monitors

Stack Organization Patterns

Pattern 1: Environment-Based Stacks

Pattern 2: Service-Based Stacks

Pattern 3: Client-Based Stacks (MSP)

Stack Templates

Using Stack Templates

Creating Custom Templates (Enterprise)

Best Practices

Troubleshooting

Can’t Create Stack

Stack Not Showing on Dashboard

Components Not Updating

Next Steps

Adding Services

Notification Setup

Status Pages

Stack Concepts

​What You’ll Learn

​Before You Start

​Creating Your First Stack

​Stack Configuration Options

​Basic Settings

​Advanced Settings

​Adding Services to Your Stack

​Option 1: Add Third-Party Services

​Option 2: Add Custom Monitors

​Stack Organization Patterns

​Pattern 1: Environment-Based Stacks

​Pattern 2: Service-Based Stacks

​Pattern 3: Client-Based Stacks (MSP)

​Stack Templates

​Using Stack Templates

​Creating Custom Templates (Enterprise)

​Best Practices

​Troubleshooting

​Can’t Create Stack

​Stack Not Showing on Dashboard

​Components Not Updating

​Next Steps

Adding Services

Notification Setup

Status Pages

Stack Concepts

What You’ll Learn

Before You Start

Creating Your First Stack

Stack Configuration Options

Basic Settings

Advanced Settings

Adding Services to Your Stack

Option 1: Add Third-Party Services

Option 2: Add Custom Monitors

Stack Organization Patterns

Pattern 1: Environment-Based Stacks

Pattern 2: Service-Based Stacks

Pattern 3: Client-Based Stacks (MSP)

Stack Templates

Using Stack Templates

Creating Custom Templates (Enterprise)

Best Practices

Troubleshooting

Can’t Create Stack

Stack Not Showing on Dashboard

Components Not Updating

Next Steps