The disclosed embodiments relate to a system that generates an alert based on information extracted from search results generated by a query. During operation, the system executes the query to generate the search results. The system also obtains configuration information for the alert, wherein the configuration information identifies information associated with the search results, and also specifies a trigger condition for the alert. Next, when the trigger condition for the alert is met, the system uses the configuration information to generate a payload containing the identified information associated with the search results. The system then invokes alert-generating functionality and provides the payload as input to the alert-generating functionality. This enables the alert-generating functionality to use the information from the search results while performing one or more alert actions association with the alert.