@metrics/client

A streaming metric producer. Allows producing counters, gauges, histograms and summaries in a way that is independent of your metrics system.

A streaming metric producer. Allows producing counters, gauges, time series in a way that is independent of your metrics system so that you can produce metrics and let consumers decide how to consume them. Additionally, you can pipe together different metrics streams before finally consuming them all in a single location.

Quick start

The client is intended to be used in the following way:

Step 1.

Instantiate a new client

const Metrics = require('@metrics/client');

const client = new Metrics();

Step 2.

Use the client for instrumentation

const counter = client.counter({
    name: 'unique_metric_name',
    description: 'Description of metric being collected',
});

counter.inc();

Step 3.

Pipe collected metrics to a collector

client.pipe(consumer);

The client supports 4 types of metric creation use cases.

• Counters are supported via the client.counter method
• Gauges are supported via the client.gauge method
• Histograms are supported via the client.histogram method
• Summaries are supported via the client.summary method

Examples

Creating and incrementing a counter

const counter = client.counter({
    name: 'my_counter',
    description: 'Counter description',
});
counter.inc();

Creating and incrementing a gauge

const gauge = client.gauge({
    name: 'my_gauge',
    description: 'Gauge description',
});
gauge.set(10);

Creating and incrementing a summary

const summary = client.summary({
    name: 'my_summary',
    description: 'Summary description',
});
summary.observe(0.123);

Creating and incrementing a summary using a timer

const summary = client.summary({
    name: 'my_summary',
    description: 'Summary description',
});
const end = summary.timer();
// ... time something
end();

Creating and incrementing a histogram

const histogram = client.histogram({
    name: 'my_histogram',
    description: 'Histogram description',
});
histogram.observe(0.123);

Creating and incrementing a histogram using a timer

const histogram = client.histogram({
    name: 'my_histogram',
    description: 'Histogram description',
});
const end = histogram.timer();
// ... time something
end();

Composing metric streams

One of the goals of @metrics/client is to allow any number of modules to produce their own metrics, not know about where they might be consumed.

This can be achieved by including and instantiating a @metrics/client client in each module, using it to create metrics and then exposing the client for consumption elsewhere.

Example

// module-1

const Metrics = require('@metrics/client');
const client = new Metrics();

const counter = client.counter({
    name: 'my_counter',
    description: 'Counter description',
});
counter.inc();

module.exports.metrics = client;

// module-2

const Metrics = require('@metrics/client');
const client = new Metrics();

const counter = client.counter({
    name: 'my_counter',
    description: 'Counter description',
});
counter.inc();

module.exports.metrics = client;

// consuming module
const module1 = require('module-1');
const module2 = require('module-2');
const consumer = require('some-consumer');

module1.pipe(consumer);
module2.pipe(consumer);

Metrics consumption

In order to consume metrics produced by @metrics/client you just need to listen for data and use your favourite metrics client to convert our data format into something usable by your system of choice.

Example: Prometheus using prom-client

const { Counter } = require('prom-client');
const { Writable } = require('stream');

class Consumer extends Writable {
    constructor() {
        super({ objectMode: true });

        this.counter = new Counter({
            name: 'my_metric_counter',
            help: 'Counts http request type things',
            labelNames: ['url', 'method'],
        });
    }

    _write(metric, enc, cb) {
        let url;
        let method;

        metric.labels.forEach((obj) => {
            if (obj.name === 'url') {
                url = obj.value;
            }
            if (obj.name === 'method') {
                method = obj.value;
            }
        });

        this.counter.labels(url, method).inc(1);
        cb();
    }
}

API

new Metrics(options)

Creates a new instance of the metrics client.

The Metrics instance inherit from Transform Stream. Due to this the instance also take all config parameters which the Transform Stream does. Please see the documentation of Transform Streams for further documentation.

options

name	description	type	default
id	A optional unique identifier of the instance of the Object.	string	hash

Example

const client = new Metrics(options);

return: Duplex Stream

instance methods

.counter(options)

Creates an instance of a Counter class which can be used to populate the metrics stream with counter metrics.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
labels	Available to be used to hold label data.	object	null	false

return: Counter

Example

const client = new Metrics(options);
const counter = client.counter(options);

counter.inc(value|options, options)

Method that when called will populate the metrics stream with a counter increment.

name	description	type	default	required
value	Value to increment the counter by	integer	1	false
options	Object that can be used to specify labels	object	{}	false

Example

const counter = client.counter(options);

counter.inc(); // increment by 1
counter.inc(10); // increment by 10
counter.inc({ labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // increment by 1, specify labels
counter.inc(5, { labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // increment by 5, specify labels

.gauge(options)

Creates an instance of a Gauge class which can be used to populate the metrics stream with gauge metrics.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
labels	Available to be used to hold label data.	object	null	false

Example

const client = new Metrics(options);
const gauge = client.gauge(options);

gauge.set(value, options)

Method that when called will populate the metrics stream with a gauge value.

name	description	type	default	required
value	Value to set the gauge to	integer	null	true
options	Object that can be used to specify labels	object	{}	false

Example

const gauge = client.gauge(options);

gauge.set(10); // set to 10
gauge.set(5, { labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // set to 5, specify labels

.histogram(options)

Creates an instance of a Histogram class which can be used to populate the metrics stream with histogram metrics.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
buckets	Set custom buckets	number[]	null	false
labels	Available to be used to hold label data.	object	null	false

Example

const client = new Metrics(options);
const histogram = client.histogram(options);

histogram.observe(value, options)

Method that when called will populate the metrics stream with a histogram value.

name	description	type	default	required
value	Value to set the gauge to	integer	null	true
options	Object that can be used to specify labels and buckets	object	{}	false

Example

const histogram = client.histogram(options);

histogram.observe(0.001); // observe value 0.001
histogram.observe(5, { labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // observe value 5, specify labels
histogram.observe(
    0.01,
    { buckets: [0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 10, 100] }, // observe 0.01, set buckets
);

histogram.timer(options)

Method that when called will return an end function for use in measuring the time between 2 points

name	description	type	default	required
options	Object that can be used to specify labels and buckets	object	{}	false

Examples

const histogram = client.histogram(options);

const end = histogram.timer(); // start timer
// stuff happens
end();

const end = histogram.timer({ labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // start timer, set labels
// stuff happens
end();

const end = histogram.timer(); // start timer
// stuff happens
end({ labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // set labels in end function

const end = histogram.timer({
    buckets: [0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 10, 100],
}); // start timer, set buckets
// stuff happens
end();

.summary(options)

Creates an instance of a Summary class which can be used to populate the metrics stream with summary metrics.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
quantiles	Set custom quantiles	number[]	null	false
labels	Available to be used to hold label data.	object	null	false

Example

const client = new Metrics(options);
const summary = client.summary(options);

summary.observe(value, options)

Method that when called will populate the metrics stream with a summary value.

name	description	type	default	required
value	Value to set the summary to	integer	null	true
options	Object that can be used to specify labels and quantiles	object	{}	false

Example

const summary = client.summary(options);

summary.observe(0.001); // observe value 0.001
summary.observe(5, { labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // observe value 5, specify labels
summary.observe(
    0.01,
    { quantiles: [0.001, 0.01, 0.5, 0.9, 0.99] }, // observe 0.01, use meta to specify quantile meta
);

summary.timer(options)

Method that when called will return an end function for use in measuring the time between 2 points

name	description	type	default	required
options	Object that can be used to specify labels and quantiles	object	{}	false

Examples

const summary = client.summary(options);

const end = summary.timer(); // start timer
// stuff happens
end();

const end = summary.timer({ labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // start timer, set labels
// stuff happens
end();

const end = summary.timer(); // start timer
// stuff happens
end({ labels: { url: 'http://finn.no' } }); // set labels in end function

const end = summary.timer({ quantiles: [0.001, 0.01, 0.5, 0.9, 0.99] }); // start timer, set meta
// stuff happens
end();

.metric(options)

Collects a generic metric. As a minimum, a name and description for the metric must be provided.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
value	Arbitrary value for the metric (used for gauges)	string|number	null	false
meta	Available to be used to hold any misc data.	object	null	false
labels	Available to be used to hold label data.	array[object]	null	false

return: void

client.metric({
    name: '',
    description: '',
});

meta

meta can be used to hold any additional information you might wish to pass on to a consumer. It should be an object of keys and values.

client.metric({
    name: 'my_metric',
    description: 'My HTTP timing metric',
    meta: {
        quantiles: [0.01, 0.1, 0.5, 0.9, 0.99],
    },
});

labels

labels can be used to pass on specific label metadata to a consumer. Examples of labels are the URL or method when timing HTTP requests.

Labels should be defined as an array of objects where each object has a name and value property. The name property describes the labels name and the value property describes the label's actual value.

client.metric({
    name: 'my_metric',
    description: 'My HTTP timing metric',
    labels: [
        { name: 'url', value: 'http://finn.no' },
        { name: 'method', value: 'get' },
    ],
});

.timer(options)

Starts a metric timer and returns and end function to be called when the measurement should be considered finished.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
value	Arbitrary value for the metric (used for gauges)	string|number	null	false
meta	Available to be used to hold any misc data	object	null	false

return: function Returns an end function (see below) to be used to indicate that the timer measurement is finished.

Example

const end = client.timer(options);

.end(options)

Stops a previously started timer, merges timers options with end options and and sets the measured time value.

options

name	description	type	default	required
name	Metric name. valid characters: a-z,A-Z,0-9,_	string	null	true
description	Metric description	string	null	true
value	Arbitrary value for the metric (used for gauges)	string|number	null	false
meta	Available to be used to hold any misc data	object	null	false

return: void

Example

const end = client.timer(options);
// ... thing to be measured
end(options);

instance events

drop

Emitted when the client starts dropping metrics. Will emit the dropped metric.

Example

const client = new Metrics();
client.on('drop', (metric) => {
    console.log('dropped metric', metric);
});