Metrics #

Metrics work by exposing a /metrics endpoint which can then be accessed by prometheus.

To keep the load on the database minimal, metrics are stored and updated in redis. The metrics package provides several functions to create and update metrics.

Exposing New Metrics #

First, define a const with the metric key in redis. This is done in pkg/metrics/metrics.go.

To expose a new metric, you need to register it in the init function inside of the metrics package like so:

// Register total user count metric
promauto.NewGaugeFunc(prometheus.GaugeOpts{
    Name: "vikunja_team_count", // The key of the metric. Must be unique.
    Help: "The total number of teams on this instance", // A description about the metric itself.
}, func() float64 {
    count, _ := GetCount(TeamCountKey) // TeamCountKey is the const we defined earlier.
    return float64(count)
})

Then you’ll need to set the metrics initial value on every startup of Vikunja. This is done in pkg/routes/routes.go to avoid cyclic imports. If metrics are enabled, it checks if a redis connection is available and then sets the initial values. A convenience function is available if the metric is based on a database struct.

Because metrics are stored in redis, you are responsible to increase or decrease these based on criteria you define. To do this, use metrics.UpdateCount(value, key) where value is the amount you want to change it (you can pass negative values to decrease it) and key it the redis key used to define the metric.

Using it #

A Prometheus config with a Grafana template is available at our git repo.