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Query metric labels

Grafana Mimir supports multiple HTTP API endpoints to query metric label names and values. There are differences and trade-off between these API endpoints.

Querying label names

The following API endpoints find the list of label names of all (or a subset of) series stored in Mimir:

Note

<prometheus-http-prefix> is the Prometheus HTTP prefix as documented in the HTTP API reference. The default prefix is /prometheus.

Recommendations and performance trade-off

  • Prefer get label names over label names cardinality API, unless you need to know the number of unique label values for each label name.
  • The get label names API start and end parameters are optional. When omitted, Mimir will query label names for the whole retention period or up to the configured -store.max-labels-query-length. We recommend to always specify start and end parameters, and preferably set them to the shortest period that is feasible for your use case.
  • For both API endpoints, executing a request specifying the series selector is computationally more expensive than the same request without the series selector. However, the results set might be significantly smaller when the series selector reduces the series set.

Features comparison

The different API endpoints have different features, and the main differences follow.

Can specify the time range in the request?

  • Get label names
    Yes. However, the actual time range granularity is restricted to TSDB block range periods, which are 2h for the most recent metrics, and up to 24h for historical metrics when running Mimir with the default configuration. In practice, the input start and end parameters are rounded to the TSDB block boundaries:
    • The start parameter is rounded to the start of the nearest block containing samples with timestamps that are greater than or equal to the input timestamp.
    • The end parameter is rounded to the end of the nearest block containing samples with timestamps that are less than or equal to the input timestamp.
  • Label names cardinality
    No. The API queries only the in-memory series in the ingesters that hold series for the tenant.

Can specify the series selector in the request?

  • Get label names API
    Yes. The optional match[] parameter makes it possible to select the series from which to read the label names. The match[] parameter can be specified multiple times. When omitted, label names are extracted from all series.
  • Label names cardinality API
    Yes. The optional selector parameter makes it possible to select the series from which to read the label names. The selector parameter can be specified only once. When omitted, label names are extracted from all series.

Querying label values

The following API endpoints find the list of label values for a given label name:

Note

<prometheus-http-prefix> is the Prometheus HTTP prefix as documented in the HTTP API reference. The default prefix is /prometheus.

Recommendations and performance trade-off

  • Prefer get label values over label values cardinality API, unless you need to know the number of series for each label name and value.
  • The get label values API makes it possible to specify a single label name, and the label values cardinality API makes it possible to specify multiple label names. If you need to get the label values for multiple label names, we recommend issuing multiple get label values requests instead of a single label values cardinality API call with multiple label names.
  • The get label values API start and end parameters are optional. When omitted, Mimir will query label values for the whole retention period or up to the configured -store.max-labels-query-length. We recommend to always specify start and end parameters, and preferably set them to the shortest period that is feasible for your use case. The longer the time range, the more computationally expensive the request is.
  • For both API endpoints, executing a request specifying the series selector is computationally more expensive than the same request without the series selector. However, the results set might be significantly smaller when the series selector reduces the series set.

Features comparison

The different API endpoints have different features, and the main differences follow.

Can specify the time range in the request?

  • Get label values API
    Yes. However, the actual time range granularity is restricted to TSDB block range periods, which are 2h for the most recent metrics, and up to 24h for historical metrics when running Mimir with the default configuration. In practice, the input start and end parameters are rounded to the TSDB block boundaries:
    • The start parameter is rounded to the start of the nearest block containing samples with timestamps that are greater than or equal to the input timestamp.
    • The end parameter is rounded to the end of the nearest block containing samples with timestamps that are less than or equal to the input timestamp.
  • Label values cardinality API
    No. The API queries only the in-memory series in the ingesters that hold series for the tenant.

Can specify the series selector in the request?

  • Get label values API
    Yes. The optional match[] parameter makes it possible to select the series from which to read the label values. The match[] parameter can be specified multiple times. When omitted, label values are extracted from all series.
  • Label values cardinality API
    Yes. The optional selector parameter makes it possible to select the series from which to read the label names and values. The selector parameter can be specified only once. When omitted, label names and values are extracted from all series.

Alternatives

The following API endpoints have not been explicitly designed to query metric label names and values, but label names and/or values can be extracted from the response:

Note

<prometheus-http-prefix> is the Prometheus HTTP prefix as documented in the HTTP API reference. The default prefix is /prometheus.

Recommendations and performance trade-off

  • Prefer get label names over other APIs to get the list of label names. The get label names is expected to always perform better than other APIs.
  • Prefer get label values over other APIs to get the list of label values.
    • If you’re experiencing a slow response time when querying get label values API, the request includes a series selector and the series selector is expected to match a small set of series (order of few thousands), then consider using get series by label matchers instead of the get label values API.
    • If you can’t use get series by label matchers API (e.g. the API is not available in the client you’re using), then fallback to the instant query API.

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