Monitor infrastructure

Grafana integrations

Integrations reference

Node.js

Grafana Cloud

Node.js integration for Grafana Cloud

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows execution of JavaScript code outside a web browser.

This integration includes 1 useful alert and 1 pre-built dashboard to help monitor and visualize Node.js metrics.

Before you begin

This integration monitors a Node.js app that exposes metrics through prom-client.

In order for the integration to work, the prom-client should be installed and the default metrics should be enabled. Afterwards the metrics can be exposed under /metrics endpoint.

import express from 'express';
import { collectDefaultMetrics, register } from 'prom-client';

collectDefaultMetrics();

const app = express();

app.get('/metrics', async (_req, res) => {
  try {
    res.set('Content-Type', register.contentType);
    res.end(await register.metrics());
  } catch (err) {
    res.status(500).end(err);
  }
});

app.listen(4001, '0.0.0.0');

Install Node.js integration for Grafana Cloud

In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
Find Node.js and click its tile to open the integration.
Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send Node.js metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance.
Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboard and alert to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your Node.js setup.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy

Simple mode

These snippets are configured to scrape a single Node.js instance running locally with default ports.

First, manually copy and append the following snippets into your alloy configuration file.

Metrics snippets

discovery.relabel "metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:4001",
	}]

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs" {
	targets    = discovery.relabel.metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs.output
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/nodejs"
}

Advanced mode

The following snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process.

To instruct Grafana Alloy to scrape your Node.js instances, manually copy and append the snippets to your alloy configuration file, then follow subsequent instructions.

Advanced metrics snippets

discovery.relabel "metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:4001",
	}]

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs" {
	targets    = discovery.relabel.metrics_integrations_integrations_nodejs.output
	forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name   = "integrations/nodejs"
}

To monitor your Node.js instance, you must use a discovery.relabel component to discover your Node.js Prometheus endpoint and apply appropriate labels, followed by a prometheus.scrape component to scrape it.

Configure the following properties within each discovery.relabel component:

__address__: The address to your Node.js Prometheus metrics endpoint.
instance label: constants.hostname sets the instance label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this Node.js instance.

If you have multiple Node.js servers to scrape, configure one discovery.relabel for each and scrape them by including each under targets within the prometheus.scrape component.

Grafana Agent static configuration (deprecated)

The following section shows configuration for running Grafana Agent in static mode which is deprecated. You should use Grafana Alloy for all new deployments.

Before you begin

This integration monitors a Node.js app that exposes metrics through prom-client.

In order for the integration to work, the prom-client should be installed and the default metrics should be enabled. Afterwards the metrics can be exposed under /metrics endpoint.

import express from 'express';
import { collectDefaultMetrics, register } from 'prom-client';

collectDefaultMetrics();

const app = express();

app.get('/metrics', async (_req, res) => {
  try {
    res.set('Content-Type', register.contentType);
    res.end(await register.metrics());
  } catch (err) {
    res.status(500).end(err);
  }
});

app.listen(4001, '0.0.0.0');

Install Node.js integration for Grafana Cloud

In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
Find Node.js and click its tile to open the integration.
Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send Node.js metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance.
Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboard and alert to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your Node.js setup.

Post-install configuration for the Node.js integration

After enabling the metrics generation, you must manually add the snippet provided to configure Grafana Agent to scrape your Node.js application.

The prom-client lib exposes a /metrics endpoint. To scrape it, add the provided snippet to your Grafana Agent configuration file.

Make sure to change targets in the snippet according to your environment.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Agent

Below metrics.configs.scrape_configs, insert the following lines and change the URLs according to your environment:

    - job_name: integrations/nodejs
      static_configs:
        - targets: ['localhost:4001']
      relabel_configs:
        - replacement: '<your-instance-name>'
          target_label: instance

Full example configuration for Grafana Agent

Refer to the following Grafana Agent configuration for a complete example that contains all the snippets used for the Node.js integration. This example also includes metrics that are sent to monitor your Grafana Agent instance.

integrations:
  prometheus_remote_write:
  - basic_auth:
      password: <your_prom_pass>
      username: <your_prom_user>
    url: <your_prom_url>
  agent:
    enabled: true
    relabel_configs:
    - action: replace
      source_labels:
      - agent_hostname
      target_label: instance
    - action: replace
      target_label: job
      replacement: "integrations/agent-check"
    metric_relabel_configs:
    - action: keep
      regex: (prometheus_target_sync_length_seconds_sum|prometheus_target_scrapes_.*|prometheus_target_interval.*|prometheus_sd_discovered_targets|agent_build.*|agent_wal_samples_appended_total|process_start_time_seconds)
      source_labels:
      - __name__
  # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `integrations` section.
  # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
logs:
  configs:
  - clients:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_loki_pass>
        username: <your_loki_user>
      url: <your_loki_url>
    name: integrations
    positions:
      filename: /tmp/positions.yaml
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `logs.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
metrics:
  configs:
  - name: integrations
    remote_write:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_prom_pass>
        username: <your_prom_user>
      url: <your_prom_url>
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `metrics.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
    - job_name: integrations/nodejs
      static_configs:
        - targets: ['localhost:4001']
      relabel_configs:
        - replacement: '<your-instance-name>'
          target_label: instance
  global:
    scrape_interval: 60s
  wal_directory: /tmp/grafana-agent-wal

Dashboards

The Node.js integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your system.

Node.js

Node.js application overview dashboard

Alerts

The Node.js integration includes the following useful alerts:

Alert	Description
NodejsDown	Critical: Node.js not up.

Metrics

The most important metrics provided by the Node.js integration, which are used on the pre-built dashboard and Prometheus alert, are as follows:

nodejs_active_handles_total
nodejs_active_requests_total
nodejs_eventloop_lag_p50_seconds
nodejs_eventloop_lag_p99_seconds
nodejs_eventloop_lag_seconds
nodejs_external_memory_bytes
nodejs_gc_duration_seconds_count
nodejs_gc_duration_seconds_sum
nodejs_heap_size_total_bytes
nodejs_heap_size_used_bytes
nodejs_heap_space_size_used_bytes
nodejs_version_info
process_cpu_seconds_total
process_cpu_system_seconds_total
process_cpu_user_seconds_total
process_resident_memory_bytes
process_start_time_seconds
up

Changelog

# 0.0.7 - November 2023

* Replaced Angular dashboard panels with React panels

# 0.0.6 - July 2023

* New Filter Metrics option for configuring the Grafana Agent, which saves on metrics cost by dropping any metric not used by this integration. Beware that anything custom built using metrics that are not on the snippet will stop working.
* New hostname relabel option, which applies the instance name you write on the text box to the Grafana Agent configuration snippets, making it easier and less error prone to configure this mandatory label.

# 0.0.5 - December 2022

* Update mixin to latest
  - Add missing job selector to query

# 0.0.4 - October 2022

* Update mixin to latest version:
  - fix NodejsDown alert definition

# 0.0.3 - September 2022

* Update dashboard panels descriptions.

# 0.0.2 - October 2021

* Update mixin to latest version:
  - Update queries to use $__rate_interval

# 0.0.1 - December 2020

* Initial release

Cost

By connecting your Node.js instance to Grafana Cloud, you might incur charges. To view information on the number of active series that your Grafana Cloud account uses for metrics included in each Cloud tier, see Active series and dpm usage and Cloud tier pricing.