Template reference

Prometheus supports templating in the annotations and labels of alerts, as well as in served console pages. Templates have the ability to run queries against the local database, iterate over data, use conditionals, format data, etc. The Prometheus templating language is based on the system.

Data Structures

The primary data structure for dealing with time series data is the sample, defined as:

type sample struct {
        Labels map[string]string
        Value  interface{}
}

The metric name of the sample is encoded in a special __name__ label in the Labels map.

[]sample means a list of samples.

interface{} in Go is similar to a void pointer in C.

Functions

In addition to the provided by Go templating, Prometheus provides functions for easier processing of query results in templates.

If functions are used in a pipeline, the pipeline value is passed as the last argument.

Queries

Name Arguments Returns Notes
query query string []sample Queries the database, does not support returning range vectors.
first []sample sample Equivalent to index a 0
label label, sample string Equivalent to index sample.Labels label
value sample interface{} Equivalent to sample.Value
sortByLabel label, []samples []sample Sorts the samples by the given label. Is stable.

first, label and value are intended to make query results easily usable in pipelines.

Numbers

Name Arguments Returns Notes
humanize number or string string Converts a number to a more readable format, using .
humanize1024 number or string string Like humanize, but uses 1024 as the base rather than 1000.
humanizeDuration number or string string Converts a duration in seconds to a more readable format.
humanizePercentage number or string string Converts a ratio value to a fraction of 100.
humanizeTimestamp number or string string Converts a Unix timestamp in seconds to a more readable format.
toTime number or string *time.Time Converts a Unix timestamp in seconds to a time.Time.

Humanizing functions are intended to produce reasonable output for consumption by humans, and are not guaranteed to return the same results between Prometheus versions.

Strings

Name Arguments Returns Notes
title string string , capitalises first character of each word.
toUpper string string , converts all characters to upper case.
toLower string string , converts all characters to lower case.
stripPort string string net.SplitHostPort, splits string into host and port, then returns only host.
match pattern, text boolean Tests for a unanchored regexp match.
reReplaceAll pattern, replacement, text string Regexp substitution, unanchored.
graphLink expr string Returns path to graph view in the expression browser for the expression.
tableLink expr string Returns path to tabular ("Table") view in the expression browser for the expression.
parseDuration string float Parses a duration string such as "1h" into the number of seconds it represents.
stripDomain string string Removes the domain part of a FQDN. Leaves port untouched.

Others

Name Arguments Returns Notes
args []interface{} map[string]interface{} This converts a list of objects to a map with keys arg0, arg1 etc. This is intended to allow multiple arguments to be passed to templates.
tmpl string, []interface{} nothing Like the built-in template, but allows non-literals as the template name. Note that the result is assumed to be safe, and will not be auto-escaped. Only available in consoles.
safeHtml string string Marks string as HTML not requiring auto-escaping.
externalURL none string The external URL under which Prometheus is externally reachable.
pathPrefix none string The external URL path for use in console templates.

Template type differences

Each of the types of templates provide different information that can be used to parameterize templates, and have a few other differences.

Alert field templates

.Value, .Labels, .ExternalLabels, and .ExternalURL contain the alert value, the alert labels, the globally configured external labels, and the external URL (configured with --web.external-url) respectively. They are also exposed as the $value, $labels, $externalLabels, and $externalURL variables for convenience.

Console templates

Consoles are exposed on /consoles/, and sourced from the directory pointed to by the -web.console.templates flag.

Console templates are rendered with , which provides auto-escaping. To bypass the auto-escaping use the safe* functions.,

URL parameters are available as a map in .Params. To access multiple URL parameters by the same name, .RawParams is a map of the list values for each parameter. The URL path is available in .Path, excluding the /consoles/ prefix. The globally configured external labels are available as .ExternalLabels. There are also convenience variables for all four: $rawParams, $params, $path, and $externalLabels.

Consoles also have access to all the templates defined with {{define "templateName"}}...{{end}} found in *.lib files in the directory pointed to by the -web.console.libraries flag. As this is a shared namespace, take care to avoid clashes with other users. Template names beginning with prom, _prom, and __ are reserved for use by Prometheus, as are the functions listed above.

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