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The Metrics Explorer charts the metrics your services send. Pick a metric from the catalog, choose how to aggregate it, group it by labels, and click into the exemplars behind a histogram.
The Metrics Explorer with a line chart of http.server.request.duration p95 and the series table below it

The Metrics Explorer charting the p95 of http.server.request.duration

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Build a query

Each row of the explorer is one query.
  1. Metric. Pick a name from the catalog. The picker shows the unit next to the name. The catalog refreshes every 60 seconds.
  2. Aggregation. The choices depend on the metric type. A counter or gauge offers sum, avg, min, max, rate, and count. A histogram offers p50, p90, p95, p99, avg, min, max, sum, and count. The default is rate for a counter and p95 for a histogram.
  3. Group by. Pick a label to get one series per value, or No grouping for a single series.
  4. Filter. Add label filters to narrow the series.
Add metric adds another row. Bands replaces a histogram row with four rows, p50, p90, p95, and p99, so the tail and the median share one chart.

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Read the chart

  • Line, Bars, Area, Stacked, and Table show any query. Heatmap and Dist need a single histogram query and show the bucket distribution over time or over the whole window.
  • lin and log switch the value axis.
  • vs prev period overlays the same query shifted back by the selected range.
  • Threshold draws a horizontal line at a value you choose.
  • The header shows the step and the window the chart was computed with, for example step 30s · 1h window.
  • View SQL shows the query that produced the chart. The SQL tab runs your own query against the metrics tables.
  • Share copies a link that reproduces the whole explorer state.
The series table under the chart lists every series with its value over the window, n ≥ p for percentile queries, the change versus the previous period, and a sparkline. Click the eye icon to hide a series.

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Exemplars

A histogram carries exemplars: sampled measurements with the trace id of the request that produced them.
  • Click a series row in the table to open every exemplar of that series in the window.
  • In Heatmap, click a cell to open the exemplars of that bucket and time step.
  • In Dist, click a bar to open the exemplars of that value range.
The Exemplars drawer lists them with time, duration, and trace id. View trace opens the trace. Exemplars walks through the whole pivot.

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Before data arrives

An empty Metrics page shows four setup steps: the OTLP metrics endpoint, the bearer token in the Authorization header, instrumenting the service with the env resource attribute, and emitting at least one data point. The catalog refreshes every 60 seconds.

Exemplars

From a spike to the request and its logs.

Custom metrics

Define your own histograms with exemplars in Node.js.