Caution
Grafana Alloy is the new name for our distribution of the OTel collector. Grafana Agent has been deprecated and is in Long-Term Support (LTS) through October 31, 2025. Grafana Agent will reach an End-of-Life (EOL) on November 1, 2025. Read more about why we recommend migrating to Grafana Alloy.
Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.
discovery.kubernetes
discovery.kubernetes
allows you to find scrape targets from Kubernetes
resources. It watches cluster state, and ensures targets are continually synced
with what is currently running in your cluster.
If you supply no connection information, this component defaults to an in-cluster configuration. A kubeconfig file or manual connection settings can be used to override the defaults.
Usage
discovery.kubernetes "LABEL" {
role = DISCOVERY_ROLE
}
Arguments
The following arguments are supported:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
api_server | string | URL of Kubernetes API server. | no | |
role | string | Type of Kubernetes resource to query. | yes | |
kubeconfig_file | string | Path of kubeconfig file to use for connecting to Kubernetes. | no | |
bearer_token | secret | Bearer token to authenticate with. | no | |
bearer_token_file | string | File containing a bearer token to authenticate with. | no | |
proxy_url | string | HTTP proxy to proxy requests through. | no | |
follow_redirects | bool | Whether redirects returned by the server should be followed. | true | no |
enable_http2 | bool | Whether HTTP2 is supported for requests. | true | no |
At most one of the following can be provided:
The role
argument is required to specify what type of targets to discover.
role
must be one of node
, pod
, service
, endpoints
, endpointslice
,
or ingress
.
node role
The node
role discovers one target per cluster node with the address
defaulting to the HTTP port of the Kubelet daemon. The target address defaults
to the first existing address of the Kubernetes node object in the address type
order of NodeInternalIP
, NodeExternalIP
, NodeLegacyHostIP
, and
NodeHostName
.
The following labels are included for discovered nodes:
__meta_kubernetes_node_name
: The name of the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_provider_id
: The cloud provider’s name for the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_label_<labelname>
: Each label from the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_labelpresent_<labelname>
: Set totrue
for each label from the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_annotation_<annotationname>
: Each annotation from the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_annotationpresent_<annotationname>
: Set totrue
for each annotation from the node object.__meta_kubernetes_node_address_<address_type>
: The first address for each node address type, if it exists.
In addition, the instance
label for the node will be set to the node name as
retrieved from the API server.
service role
The service
role discovers a target for each service port for each service.
This is generally useful for externally monitoring a service. The address will
be set to the Kubernetes DNS name of the service and respective service port.
The following labels are included for discovered services:
__meta_kubernetes_namespace
: The namespace of the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_<annotationname>
: Each annotation from the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_annotationpresent_<annotationname>
:true
for each annotation of the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_cluster_ip
: The cluster IP address of the service. This does not apply to services of typeExternalName
.__meta_kubernetes_service_external_name
: The DNS name of the service. This only applies to services of typeExternalName
.__meta_kubernetes_service_label_<labelname>
: Each label from the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_labelpresent_<labelname>
:true
for each label of the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_name
: The name of the service object.__meta_kubernetes_service_port_name
: Name of the service port for the target.__meta_kubernetes_service_port_number
: Number of the service port for the target.__meta_kubernetes_service_port_protocol
: Protocol of the service port for the target.__meta_kubernetes_service_type
: The type of the service.
pod role
The pod
role discovers all pods and exposes their containers as targets. For
each declared port of a container, a single target is generated.
If a container has no specified ports, a port-free target per container is
created. These targets must have a port manually injected using a
discovery.relabel
component before metrics can be
collected from them.
The following labels are included for discovered pods:
__meta_kubernetes_namespace
: The namespace of the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_name
: The name of the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_ip
: The pod IP of the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_label_<labelname>
: Each label from the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_labelpresent_<labelname>
:true
for each label from the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_<annotationname>
: Each annotation from the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotationpresent_<annotationname>
:true
for each annotation from the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_init
:true
if the container is anInitContainer
.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_name
: Name of the container the target address points to.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_id
: ID of the container the target address points to. The ID is in the form<type>://<container_id>
.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_image
: The image the container is using.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_port_name
: Name of the container port.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_port_number
: Number of the container port.__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_port_protocol
: Protocol of the container port.__meta_kubernetes_pod_ready
: Set totrue
orfalse
for the pod’s ready state.__meta_kubernetes_pod_phase
: Set toPending
,Running
,Succeeded
,Failed
orUnknown
in the lifecycle.__meta_kubernetes_pod_node_name
: The name of the node the pod is scheduled onto.__meta_kubernetes_pod_host_ip
: The current host IP of the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_uid
: The UID of the pod object.__meta_kubernetes_pod_controller_kind
: Object kind of the pod controller.__meta_kubernetes_pod_controller_name
: Name of the pod controller.
endpoints role
The endpoints
role discovers targets from listed endpoints of a service. For
each endpoint address one target is discovered per port. If the endpoint is
backed by a pod, all container ports of a pod are discovered as targets even if
they are not bound to an endpoint port.
The following labels are included for discovered endpoints:
__meta_kubernetes_namespace:
The namespace of the endpoints object.__meta_kubernetes_endpoints_name:
The names of the endpoints object.__meta_kubernetes_endpoints_label_<labelname>
: Each label from the endpoints object.__meta_kubernetes_endpoints_labelpresent_<labelname>
:true
for each label from the endpoints object.- The following labels are attached for all targets discovered directly from
the endpoints list:
__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_hostname
: Hostname of the endpoint.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_node_name
: Name of the node hosting the endpoint.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_ready
: Set totrue
orfalse
for the endpoint’s ready state.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_port_name
: Name of the endpoint port.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_port_protocol
: Protocol of the endpoint port.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_address_target_kind
: Kind of the endpoint address target.__meta_kubernetes_endpoint_address_target_name
: Name of the endpoint address target.
- If the endpoints belong to a service, all labels of the
service
role discovery are attached. - For all targets backed by a pod, all labels of the
pod
role discovery are attached.
endpointslice role
The endpointslice role discovers targets from existing Kubernetes endpoint
slices. For each endpoint address referenced in the EndpointSlice
object, one
target is discovered. If the endpoint is backed by a pod, all container ports
of a pod are discovered as targets even if they are not bound to an endpoint
port.
The following labels are included for discovered endpoint slices:
__meta_kubernetes_namespace
: The namespace of the endpoints object.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_name
: The name of endpoint slice object.- The following labels are attached for all targets discovered directly from
the endpoint slice list:
__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_address_target_kind
: Kind of the referenced object.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_address_target_name
: Name of referenced object.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_address_type
: The IP protocol family of the address of the target.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_endpoint_conditions_ready
: Set totrue
orfalse
for the referenced endpoint’s ready state.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_endpoint_topology_kubernetes_io_hostname
: Name of the node hosting the referenced endpoint.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_endpoint_topology_present_kubernetes_io_hostname
:true
if the referenced object has akubernetes.io/hostname
annotation.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_port
: Port of the referenced endpoint.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_port_name
: Named port of the referenced endpoint.__meta_kubernetes_endpointslice_port_protocol
: Protocol of the referenced endpoint.
- If the endpoints belong to a service, all labels of the
service
role discovery are attached. - For all targets backed by a pod, all labels of the
pod
role discovery are attached.
ingress role
The ingress
role discovers a target for each path of each ingress. This is
generally useful for externally monitoring an ingress. The address will be set
to the host specified in the Kubernetes Ingress
’s spec
block.
The following labels are included for discovered ingress objects:
__meta_kubernetes_namespace
: The namespace of the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_name
: The name of the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_label_<labelname>
: Each label from the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_labelpresent_<labelname>
:true
for each label from the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_annotation_<annotationname>
: Each annotation from the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_annotationpresent_<annotationname>
:true
for each annotation from the ingress object.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_class_name
: Class name from ingress spec, if present.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_scheme
: Protocol scheme of ingress,https
if TLS config is set. Defaults tohttp
.__meta_kubernetes_ingress_path
: Path from ingress spec. Defaults to /.
Blocks
The following blocks are supported inside the definition of
discovery.kubernetes
:
Hierarchy | Block | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
namespaces | namespaces | Information about which Kubernetes namespaces to search. | no |
selectors | selectors | Information about which Kubernetes namespaces to search. | no |
attach_metadata | attach_metadata | Optional metadata to attach to discovered targets. | no |
basic_auth | basic_auth | Configure basic_auth for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
authorization | authorization | Configure generic authorization to the endpoint. | no |
oauth2 | oauth2 | Configure OAuth2 for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
oauth2 > tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
The >
symbol indicates deeper levels of nesting. For example,
oauth2 > tls_config
refers to a tls_config
block defined inside
an oauth2
block.
namespaces block
The namespaces
block limits the namespaces to discover resources in. If
omitted, all namespaces are searched.
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
own_namespace | bool | Include the namespace Grafana Agent Flow is running in. | no | |
names | list(string) | List of namespaces to search. | no |
selectors block
The selectors
block contains optional label and field selectors to limit the
discovery process to a subset of resources.
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
role | string | Role of the selector. | yes | |
label | string | Label selector string. | no | |
field | string | Field selector string. | no |
See Kubernetes’ documentation for Field selectors and Labels and selectors to learn more about the possible filters that can be used.
The endpoints role supports pod, service, and endpoints selectors.
The pod role supports node selectors when configured with attach_metadata: {node: true}
.
Other roles only support selectors matching the role itself (e.g. node role can only contain node selectors).
Note: Using multiple
discovery.kubernetes
components with different selectors may result in a bigger load against the Kubernetes API.Selectors are recommended for retrieving a small set of resources in a very large cluster. Smaller clusters are recommended to avoid selectors in favor of filtering with a
discovery.relabel
component instead.
attach_metadata block
The attach_metadata
block allows to attach node metadata to discovered
targets. Valid for roles: pod, endpoints, endpointslice.
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
node | bool | Attach node metadata. | no |
basic_auth block
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
password_file | string | File containing the basic auth password. | no | |
password | secret | Basic auth password. | no | |
username | string | Basic auth username. | no |
password
and password_file
are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside a basic_auth
block.
authorization block
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
credentials_file | string | File containing the secret value. | no | |
credentials | secret | Secret value. | no | |
type | string | Authorization type, for example, “Bearer”. | no |
credential
and credentials_file
are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside an authorization
block.
oauth2 block
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
client_id | string | OAuth2 client ID. | no | |
client_secret_file | string | File containing the OAuth2 client secret. | no | |
client_secret | secret | OAuth2 client secret. | no | |
endpoint_params | map(string) | Optional parameters to append to the token URL. | no | |
proxy_url | string | Optional proxy URL for OAuth2 requests. | no | |
scopes | list(string) | List of scopes to authenticate with. | no | |
token_url | string | URL to fetch the token from. | no |
client_secret
and client_secret_file
are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside an oauth2
block.
The oauth2
block may also contain a separate tls_config
sub-block.
tls_config block
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
ca_pem | string | CA PEM-encoded text to validate the server with. | no | |
ca_file | string | CA certificate to validate the server with. | no | |
cert_pem | string | Certificate PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
cert_file | string | Certificate file for client authentication. | no | |
insecure_skip_verify | bool | Disables validation of the server certificate. | no | |
key_file | string | Key file for client authentication. | no | |
key_pem | secret | Key PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
min_version | string | Minimum acceptable TLS version. | no | |
server_name | string | ServerName extension to indicate the name of the server. | no |
The following pairs of arguments are mutually exclusive and can’t both be set simultaneously:
ca_pem
andca_file
cert_pem
andcert_file
key_pem
andkey_file
When configuring client authentication, both the client certificate (using
cert_pem
or cert_file
) and the client key (using key_pem
or key_file
)
must be provided.
When min_version
is not provided, the minimum acceptable TLS version is
inherited from Go’s default minimum version, TLS 1.2. If min_version
is
provided, it must be set to one of the following strings:
"TLS10"
(TLS 1.0)"TLS11"
(TLS 1.1)"TLS12"
(TLS 1.2)"TLS13"
(TLS 1.3)
Exported fields
The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
targets | list(map(string)) | The set of targets discovered from the Kubernetes API. |
Component health
discovery.kubernetes
is reported as unhealthy when given an invalid
configuration. In those cases, exported fields retain their last healthy
values.
Debug information
discovery.kubernetes
does not expose any component-specific debug information.
Debug metrics
discovery.kubernetes
does not expose any component-specific debug metrics.
Examples
In-cluster discovery
This example uses in-cluster authentication to discover all pods:
discovery.kubernetes "k8s_pods" {
role = "pod"
}
prometheus.scrape "demo" {
targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s_pods.targets
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.demo.receiver]
}
prometheus.remote_write "demo" {
endpoint {
url = PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
basic_auth {
username = USERNAME
password = PASSWORD
}
}
}
Replace the following:
PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
: The URL of the Prometheus remote_write-compatible server to send metrics to.USERNAME
: The username to use for authentication to the remote_write API.PASSWORD
: The password to use for authentication to the remote_write API.
Kubeconfig authentication
This example uses a kubeconfig file to authenticate to the Kubernetes API:
discovery.kubernetes "k8s_pods" {
role = "pod"
kubeconfig_file = "/etc/k8s/kubeconfig.yaml"
}
prometheus.scrape "demo" {
targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s_pods.targets
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.demo.receiver]
}
prometheus.remote_write "demo" {
endpoint {
url = PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
basic_auth {
username = USERNAME
password = PASSWORD
}
}
}
Replace the following:
PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
: The URL of the Prometheus remote_write-compatible server to send metrics to.USERNAME
: The username to use for authentication to the remote_write API.PASSWORD
: The password to use for authentication to the remote_write API.
Limit searched namespaces and filter by labels value
This example limits the searched namespaces and only selects pods with a specific label value attached to them:
discovery.kubernetes "k8s_pods" {
role = "pod"
selectors {
role = "pod"
label = "app.kubernetes.io/name=prometheus-node-exporter"
}
namespaces {
names = ["myapp"]
}
}
prometheus.scrape "demo" {
targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s_pods.targets
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.demo.receiver]
}
prometheus.remote_write "demo" {
endpoint {
url = PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
basic_auth {
username = USERNAME
password = PASSWORD
}
}
}
Replace the following:
PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
: The URL of the Prometheus remote_write-compatible server to send metrics to.USERNAME
: The username to use for authentication to the remote_write API.PASSWORD
: The password to use for authentication to the remote_write API.
Limit to only pods on the same node
This example limits the search to pods on the same node as this Grafana Agent. This configuration could be useful if you are running Grafana Agent as a DaemonSet.
Note
This example assumes you have used Helm chart to deploy Grafana Agent Flow in Kubernetes and setsHOSTNAME
to the Kubernetes host name. If you have a custom Kubernetes deployment, you must adapt this example to your configuration.
discovery.kubernetes "k8s_pods" {
role = "pod"
selectors {
role = "pod"
field = "spec.nodeName=" + coalesce(env("HOSTNAME"), constants.hostname)
}
}
prometheus.scrape "demo" {
targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s_pods.targets
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.demo.receiver]
}
prometheus.remote_write "demo" {
endpoint {
url = PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
basic_auth {
username = USERNAME
password = PASSWORD
}
}
}
Replace the following:
PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL
: The URL of the Prometheus remote_write-compatible server to send metrics to.USERNAME
: The username to use for authentication to the remote_write API.PASSWORD
: The password to use for authentication to the remote_write API.
Compatible components
discovery.kubernetes
has exports that can be consumed by the following components:
- Components that consume Targets
Note
Connecting some components may not be sensible or components may require further configuration to make the connection work correctly. Refer to the linked documentation for more details.