Synthetic checks allow you to define HTTP requests that are executed periodically from multiple locations to monitor uptime, availability, and performance of your APIs and websites.

When creating a check, you can configure the request details, headers, parameters, authentication, and body to fully model your production workloads or test scenarios.

Request Configuration

Name

A descriptive name for your synthetic check. Example: Login API health check

Target

Define the HTTP method and URL of the target request.

Supported methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.
Option to:
- Follow redirects (enabled/disabled)
- Allow insecure (skip TLS certificate validation — useful for testing environments)

Headers

Custom request headers can be added to model real client behavior.

Example:
- Authorization: Bearer <token>
- User-Agent: dash0-monitor
Add as many headers as required.

Query Parameters

Specify query string parameters that will be appended to the request URL after a ?.

Example: q=error+rate, limit=50, sort=desc

These are automatically encoded and appended to the target URL.

Resulting request:

https://example.com/api/search?q=error+rate&limit=50&sort=desc

Authentication

Built-in authentication support to simplify secured endpoints.

Types: Basic Auth (username/password)

Request Body

For POST, PUT, or PATCH requests, define the body payload. Supported input modes:

JSON (structured request body, e.g. { "key": "value" })
GraphQL (query/mutation payloads)
Form parameters
- Define form-encoded key–value pairs (application/x-www-form-urlencoded).
Raw data (arbitrary text or binary content)

Test Run

Before saving, you can run a test execution directly from the creation form.

Validates request configuration
Displays response details
Ensures assertions can be added with confidence

Next step: Once the request is configured, proceed to Defining Assertions to ensure your checks verify the correct behavior of your services.

Creating Synthetic Checks