Auto-generated. This article is rebuilt from app/signals/config/alert_thresholds.json by scripts/build_alerts_kb.py. Edit the alert config and re-run the script — do not edit this file directly.

VIX Term Structure Backwardation

Alert ID: VOL_BACKWARDATION
Category: volatility
Cross-detection: yes

Severity

WARNING — conditions deteriorating; worth monitoring

Trigger condition

{
  "field": "volatility_regime",
  "op": "contains",
  "value": "Backwardation"
}

volatility_regime contains “Backwardation”

Cross-detection alerts fire only on the transition into the trigger state — the condition must have been false on the previous evaluation. Persistent states do not re-fire.

Message template

VIX term structure flipped to backwardation — near-term fear exceeding long-term.

Rendered with the current signals dict via Python str.format. Placeholders that fail to resolve fall back to the raw template (see _format_message in app/signals/alerts.py).

Cooldown / dedup

• Cooldown: none. Re-evaluation on every cycle.
• Dedup: at most one active (or acknowledged) row per alert_id at a time. Re-firing while active updates fired_at and the message but keeps the original first_fired_at.
• Cross-detection: does not auto-resolve when the condition clears — the alert row stays as the historical record of the transition itself.

Notifies

• Active alert feed (/api/v1/alerts/active, /alerts/summary).
• SSE stream (/api/v1/agents/stream) for real-time consumers.
• alert_fired webhook on first fire.
• alert_resolved webhook when the condition clears (non-cross-detection alerts only).

See also

• Signal fields referenced: volatility_regime (no dedicated KB article yet — see /humans#signal-reference).
• Alert reference (legacy monolith)
• Live alerts feed