We have an event handler that, when a document is added to a library,
an entry is created in a list. That list entry contains all the
metadata from the library as well as a hyperlink to the document in
the library. It also synchronizes changes to the list metadata when
the item is changed in the library and removes the list entry if the
document is deleted out of the library.

Today, I set an alert to the list, which the event handler modifies.
Even though I set up alerts to be immediate, I got no alerts.

How are alerts triggered? Are they not triggered when the lists are
manipulated through code rather than the UI?