Probe target · content
The page the probe reads.
Once a minute, a synthetic client fetches this exact URL. The page is deliberately ordinary — it renders through the same resolver and block pipeline as every customer page. It just never changes.
GET /canary
TIMEOUT 8 S
RETRIES 2
UA CivSites-Synthetic-Canary/1.0
One fetch, start to finish
What a single pass proves.
01
Reach the edge
DNS answers for the generated domain, TLS terminates, CloudFront applies its cache policy, and the WAF inspects the request — all before a single byte of application work.
02
Resolve and render
The CivSites resolver maps domain and path to this published page, and the renderer composes its blocks server-side — exactly as it would for any resident.
03
Record the result
Availability and latency land in CloudWatch as embedded metrics. Two alarms evaluate rolling 3-minute windows; a breach reaches the on-call channel in Slack.
Operator notes
How to read it.
A pass means
Edge, application, and data layers are all answering.
Latency is inside the 5-second budget.
Nothing needs your attention.
A failure means
An alarm fires within about three minutes.
On-call is looking before customers notice.
The failing layer is already narrowed by which probe broke.