Levandor

frigate-notify Per-Camera Alert Exclusion — the Correct Config Key

2 min read

How to stop Telegram “intruder” alerts for a single camera in frigate-notify, and the verification lesson that goes with it. Done for the new telep_cam3 “ÉSZAK – Fix lencse”, which was aimed indoors and false-triggering. The correct key is frigate.cameras.exclude (nested under the frigate: block, using the Frigate camera id) — not alerts.cameras.block, not a top-level cameras:. See also Alerting, 2026-07-28-camwall-4-substream-composite, SESSION-HANDOVER.

For Agents

Correct config: under the frigate: block in /home/levander/nvr/frigate-notify/config.yml:

frigate:
  cameras:
    exclude:
      - telep_cam3

Use the Frigate camera id (telep_cam3), not the display name. docker restart frigate-notify. frigate-notify is v0.5.4 (ghcr.io/0x2142/frigate-notify:latest); config is bind-mounted. Backup: config.yml.bak-cam3excl.

The correct key

To exclude a camera from alerts, the block goes under frigate:, keyed by the Frigate camera id:

frigate:
  cameras:
    exclude:
      - telep_cam3

Not alerts.cameras.block. Not a top-level cameras: block.

The verification lesson (this is the valuable part)

koanf silently ignores misplaced/unknown keys — "Config validated!" does NOT prove a filter works

frigate-notify uses koanf, which silently ignores keys it doesn’t recognize. The first attempt put cameras.exclude at the top level. The app logged “Config file validated! / App ready!” — and then still sent the alert (Alert sent provider=Telegram). The config “validated” because the misplaced key was simply ignored, not because the filter took effect.

Only after moving the block under frigate: did the logs show the filter actually firing:

Event dropped - Camera Excluded camera=telep_cam3

Rule: always verify notification suppression against a real event in the logs, never against config validation. A validated config that silently dropped your key looks identical to a working one until a real event fires.

Why this camera

telep_cam3 = ÉSZAK – Fix lencse, the fixed lens of the new ÉSZAK camera. It is currently aimed indoors, so it false-triggered “intruder” person alerts. Excluding it from frigate-notify stops the spam while keeping the camera live on the wall (see 2026-07-28-camwall-4-substream-composite) and recording in Frigate.

Re-enable when the camera is re-aimed outdoors

  1. Remove the cameras.exclude block from config.yml.
  2. docker restart frigate-notify.

Backups

  • config.yml.bak-cam3excl

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