Skip to main content

​
Overview

Connecting New Relic lets Rootly AI analyze New Relic data during investigations. Once connected, Rootly AI can look up entities, run NRQL queries, inspect alerts and incidents, tail logs, and read golden signals. Rootly connects with a New Relic user API key (starts with NRAK).

​
Before You Start

You’ll need:
  • A New Relic user account with access to every account and entity Rootly AI should investigate.
  • An Organization Manager who can review Feature Control Manager settings.
  • New Relic MCP Server activated in Feature Control Manager.
  • API Keys activated. New Relic turns this sub-toggle off by default.
  • Your account’s region — US, Europe, or Japan.
  • A New Relic user API key created from API Keys → Create a key → User. The key starts with NRAK.
To open Feature Control Manager, select your user name in the lower-left corner of New Relic, then select Plan Management → Feature Control. See New Relic’s Feature control manager documentation for access requirements and activation steps.
Rootly uses New Relic’s hosted MCP server and exposes a curated read-only tool set. Rootly requires a user API key, not an ingest key or a license key.

​
Connecting

Open AI SRE → Atlas → Connectors (AI & Agents → Connectors if your sidebar doesn’t have an AI SRE item) and click Connect on the New Relic card. Enter a distinct Connection name for this account before supplying a user API key.
​
US, Europe, or Japan
required
Match your New Relic account’s hosting region:
  • US / North America — for accounts on one.newrelic.com.
  • Europe — for accounts on one.eu.newrelic.com.
  • Japan — for accounts on one.jp.newrelic.com.
New Relic’s data center guide lists the same login hosts and regional availability.Selecting the wrong region will cause the connection to fail even with a valid API key.
1

Enter a User API Key

Paste a New Relic user key that starts with NRAK into User API key, and click Connect with API key.
Create it from API Keys → Create a key → User type in your New Relic account.
2

Confirm the Connection

Rootly validates the API key, confirms the hosted MCP server exposes the required read tools, and then marks the card Connected. A failed reconnect leaves the previous working connection unchanged.
Rootly only replaces an existing New Relic connection after the new API key and MCP tool probe both succeed.

​
What Rootly AI Can Read

Once connected, Rootly AI can query New Relic for:
  • Entities — services, hosts, applications, and other New Relic entity types in your account.
  • NRQL queries — Rootly AI can compose and run NRQL against your data (metrics, events, logs, spans).
  • Alerts and alert policies — including current firing state and recent alert history.
  • Incidents in New Relic — Rootly AI can correlate its own incident context with any incidents you have open in New Relic.
  • Logs — search and inspect log lines matching a query.
  • Golden signals and performance metrics — throughput, latency, error rate, saturation across your instrumented services.
Access is scoped to the New Relic user who owns the API key. If that user has restricted account access, Rootly AI inherits those restrictions.

​
During an Incident

“New Relic flagged a golden-metric SLO breach at 2:12pm. Here’s the slowest trace in the window.” Rootly AI pulls New Relic’s entity data, NRQL query results, and alert history correlated with the incident. When a golden metric breaches or an alert fires in the incident’s window, Rootly AI surfaces the exact query and trace in the investigation output.

​
Best Practices

  • Use a dedicated user API key for Rootly AI. Don’t reuse a personal key that’s already in use elsewhere — it makes rotation, audit, and revocation harder. Name it something obvious like rootly-ai so it’s easy to find in New Relic’s API keys settings.
  • Consider a service user for the API key. If your New Relic account supports service users, create one specifically for Rootly AI and issue the API key from that user. This decouples Rootly AI’s access from any individual staff member’s account.
  • Rotate API keys on a cadence. New Relic user API keys are long-lived by default. Rotate quarterly (or align with your team’s existing rotation cadence). After rotating, open the New Relic card, paste the replacement key, and click Connect with API key.
  • Match the region carefully. US, Europe, and Japan use separate hosted MCP endpoints. A key connected to one region will not reach another.
  • Test with /rootly test. After connecting, declare a test incident and verify Rootly AI can query New Relic during the investigation.

​
Troubleshooting

Ask a New Relic Organization Manager to turn on New Relic MCP Server and its API Keys sub-toggle in Feature Control Manager, and confirm the user API key is valid. Then reconnect New Relic in Rootly. A failed reconnect does not replace your existing connection.
The API key field is empty or the key you pasted doesn’t start with NRAK. Only user API keys (prefix NRAK) are accepted — ingest keys (NRII) and license keys (NRAL) don’t work. Create a new key of the User type from your New Relic account and retry.
The region wasn’t set. Check the host you use to open New Relic—one.newrelic.com for US, one.eu.newrelic.com for Europe, or one.jp.newrelic.com for Japan—and select the matching option.
Rootly AI can only see what the New Relic user who owns the API key can access. If that user has restricted account visibility (common in large organizations with sub-accounts), Rootly AI inherits those restrictions. Grant broader access on the New Relic side, or create the API key from a user with the required access.
Rootly AI composes NRQL based on the investigation context; occasionally the composed query has syntax issues or references data your account doesn’t have. Check the specific error in the AI output — New Relic usually returns a helpful message. If the same query works when you run it manually in New Relic’s query builder, contact support.
The stored key is stale. Open the New Relic card, paste the replacement user key, and click Connect with API key.
Open the New Relic card, choose the correct region, and re-enter the API key. Rootly preserves the working connection until the replacement succeeds.

​
Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Add a separate New Relic connection for each account or region you need, and give each a distinct Connection name so investigations can select the right one. Each connection uses its own API key and regional endpoint.
New Relic operates separate hosted MCP endpoints for US, Europe, and Japan. Pick the region that hosts your account; the endpoints do not share account data.
No. Every query reads from New Relic fresh. NRQL results, entity lookups, alert state — all read at query time.
Yes. New Relic’s audit logging records the API key’s activity. Filter by the identity used for the Rootly connection.
Yes. Rootly AI’s calls count as normal API activity against your New Relic account’s plan quotas. Investigation-driven volume is typically low.

Connectors Overview

The full list of Connectors and how they fit together.

Data Privacy for Rootly AI

What Rootly AI sees, retention, and model-training controls.

New Relic docs

New Relic’s own documentation for API key management and account access.