Metrics

Use /metrics to discover project metrics, inspect descriptors, query series, test aggregations, and follow exemplar links to traces or spans.

/metrics is not the dashboard editor. Saved visual composition belongs in /dashboards.

Metric Discovery

Metric names come from:

query MetricNames($input: MetricNameSearchInput!) {
  metricNames(input: $input) {
    items {
      name
      description
      unit
      kind
      aggregationTemporality
      monotonic
      firstSeenAt
      lastSeenAt
    }
    nextCursor
  }
}

Use search, service, and time controls to narrow the list. The metric list loads additional backend cursor pages while scrolling; the UI does not filter or page over a client-side subset.

Series Query

Metric series use Query.metricSeries.

query MetricSeries($input: MetricSeriesInput!) {
  metricSeries(input: $input) {
    interval
    series {
      id
      label
      points {
        timestamp
        value
      }
    }
    warnings {
      code
      message
      field
    }
  }
}

Controls map directly to MetricSeriesInput:

• metric name;
• aggregation;
• time range;
• interval;
• group-by keys from the descriptor;
• attribute filters;
• maximum series.

Exemplars

Metric exemplars may contain trace and span IDs. Exemplar actions open trace detail inside the same project. Missing or unauthorized traces show the normal trace missing or forbidden state.

Backend-Owned Semantics

Storage-read owns:

• aggregation compatibility;
• grouping and filters;
• interval downsampling;
• result caps;
• warnings;
• exemplar links.

The frontend renders returned series. It must not compute rates, percentiles, joins, formulas, or rollups over broad raw data.

Common States

State	Expected behavior
No metrics	Offer metrics setup.
No matching metrics	Clear metric search.
No series for range	Keep descriptor visible and offer time range expansion.
Query error	Show GraphQL problem details without clearing selected metric.

Next Step

Save reusable visualizations with Dashboards.