I am trying to find a way to prevent multiple alerts of the same alertname and instance from dispatching notifications.

I want to notify for the first alert but prevent the others from notifying unless the first one is resolved.

For example if an alert_name of MemoryCritical comes in but the dimm_id is unique (meaning multiple DIMMs on the same instance), I only want to receive the first alert and have the rest not come through until that first alert is resolved.

I've tried this with inhibit rules but it would seem that due to logic around self-inhibition it cannot suppress the same source and destination alertname. The result is that a rule like this is ignored/never takes effect.

  # Don't dispatch a second memory alert for the same instance
  - source_matchers: [alertname=~"Memory.*"]
    target_matchers: [alertname=~"Memory.*"]
    equal: [instance]

I also tried this without a source_matcher to avoid self-inhibition, but it did not appear to work either.

  - target_matchers: [alertname=~"Memory.*"]
    equal: [instance]

I know that I could aggregate the alert rule so that it does not contain the dimm_id, but then the alert will no longer contain the dimm_id which I want to include in the data provided when it dispatches.

Any help is appreciated