Explore
This documentation topic is designed for Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x.
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x, see Working in Grafana version 10.
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 9.x, see Working in Grafana version 9.
In a Grafana workspace, the dashboard UI provides tools for building dashboards for visualization. Explore strips away all the dashboard and panel options so that you can focus on the query. Iterate until you have a working query, and then plan and build a dashboard.
For infrastructure monitoring and incident response, you no longer need to switch to other tools to debug what went wrong. You can use Explore to dig deeper into your metrics and logs to find the cause.
Explore makes it easier to view your data without creating a dashboard. If your data source supports graph and table data, Explore shows the results both as a graph and as a table. This helps you to see trends in the data and more details at the same time.
Start exploring
Note
By default, users with the Viewer role cannot edit and do not have access to Explore.
The Explore icon on the left side menu opens an empty Explore tab.
To start with an existing query in a panel, choose the Explore option from the Panel menu. This opens an Explore tab that contains the query from the panel. You can then to tweak or iterate in the query outside of your dashboard.
Choose your data source from the dropdown list in the top left. Prometheus has a custom Explore implementation. The other data sources use their standard query editor.
In the query field, you can write your query and explore your data. There are three buttons beside the query field, a clear button (X), an add query button (+) and the remove query button (-). As in the panel query editor, you can add and remove multiple queries.
Splitting and comparing
The split view feature is a way to compare graphs and tables side-by-side or to look at related data together on one page. Choose Split to duplicate the current query and split the page into two side-by-side queries. You have the option of selecting a different data source for the new query. This gives you the opportunity to compare the same query for two different servers or to compare the staging environment to the production environment.
In split view, time pickers for both panels can be linked (if you change one, the other gets changed as well) by choosing one of the time-sync buttons attached to the time pickers. Linking the time pickers helps keep the start and end times of the split view queries in sync, so that you’re looking at the same time interval in both split panels.
You can close the newly created query by choosing Close Split.
Sharing a shortened link
Use the Share shortened link capability to create smaller and
simpler URLs of the format /goto/:uid instead of sharing longer URLs that
contain complex query parameters. You can create a shortened link by choosing the
Share option in the Explore toolbar. Any shortened
links that are never used are automatically deleted after 7 days.
Query history
Query history is a list of queries that you have used in Explore. The history is local to your browser and is not shared. To open and interact with your history, choose Query history in Explore.
Viewing the query history
FIn the query history, you can do the following:
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Run a query.
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Create or edit a comment.
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Copy a query to the clipboard.
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Copy a shortened link with the query to the clipboard.
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Star a query.
Managing favorite queries
All queries that have been starred in the Query history tab are displayed on the Starred tab. You can access your favorite queries faster and reuse those queries without retyping them from.
Sort query history
By default, query history shows you the most recent queries. You can sort your history by date or by data source name in ascending or descending order.
On the right side of the query history, in the dropdown list, choose one of the following options: field.
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Newest first
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Oldest first
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Data source A-Z
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Data source Z-A
Note
If you are in split view, the sorting mode applies only to the active panel.
Filter query history
On the Query history and Starred tabs, you can filter the query history by data source name.
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Choose Filter queries for specific data source(s).
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Select the data source that you want to use to filter your history. You can select multiple data sources.
On the Query history tab, you can use the vertical slider to filter queries by date:
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Drag the lower handle to adjust the start date.
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Drag the upper handle to adjust the end date.
Note
If you are in split view, filters are applied only to the active panel.
Searching in the query history
You can search in your history across queries and your comments. Search is possible for queries in the Query history and Starred tabs.
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Choose the Search queries field.
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In the search field, enter your search term.
Query history settings
You can customize the query history in the Settings tab. The following table lists the available options.
| Setting | Default value |
|---|---|
| Specify how long Grafana will save your query history. | 1 week |
| Change the default active tab. | Query history tab |
| Show queries only for the data source that is currently active in Explore. | True |
| Clear query history. | (Choose Clear query history to permanently delete all stored queries.) |
Note
Query history settings are global, and they are applied to both panels in split mode.
Prometheus-specific features
The first version of Explore features a custom querying experience for Prometheus. When you run a query, Grafana actually runs two queries: a normal Prometheus query for the graph and an Instant Query for the table. An Instant Query returns the last value for each time series, which shows a good summary of the data shown in the graph.
Metrics explorer
On the left side of the query field, choose Metrics to open the Metric Explorer. This shows a hierarchical menu
with metrics grouped by their prefix. For example, all Alertmanager metrics are
grouped under the alertmanager prefix. This is a good starting point
for exploring which metrics are available.
Query field
The Query field supports automatic completion for metric names, function and works mostly the same way as the standard Prometheus query editor. Press Enter to run a query.
The Autocomplete menu can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+Space. The Autocomplete menu contains a new History section with a list of recently run queries.
Suggestions can appear under the Query field. Choose a suggestion to update your query with the suggested change.
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For counters (monotonically increasing metrics), a rate function is suggested.
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For buckets, a histogram function is suggested.
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For recording rules, possible to expand the rules.
Table filters
Choose the Filter button in the label column of a table panel to add filters to the query expression. You can add filters for multiple queries as well. The filter is added for all the queries.
Logs integration
You can also use Explore to investigate your logs with the following data sources:
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InfluxDB
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Elasticsearch
Logs visualization
Results of log queries are shown as histograms in the graph, and individual logs are displayed below. If the data source does not send histogram data for the requested time range, the logs model computes a time series based on the log row counts bucketed by an automatically calculated time interval. The start of the histogram is then anchored by the first log row’s timestamp from the result. The end of the time series is anchored to the time picker’s To range.
Log level
For logs where a level label is specified, Grafana uses the value of the label to determine the log level and update the color accordingly. If the log doesn’t have a level label specified, Grafana parses the log to find out whether its content matches any of the supported expressions. The log level is always determined by the first match. If Grafana is not able to determine a log level, it will be visualized with the unknown log level. The following table lists log levels and the mapping of log level abbreviations and expressions.
| Supported expressions | Log level | Color |
|---|---|---|
| emerg | critical | purple |
| fatal | critical | purple |
| alert | critical | purple |
| crit | critical | purple |
| critical | critical | purple |
| err | error | red |
| eror | error | red |
| error | error | red |
| warn | warning | yellow |
| warning | warning | yellow |
| info | info | green |
| information | info | green |
| notice | info | green |
| dbug | debug | blue |
| debug | debug | blue |
| trace | trace | light blue |
| * | unknown | grey |
Visualization options
You can customize how logs are displayed and select which columns are shown.
Time
This option shows or hides the time column. This is the timestamp that is associated with the log line as reported from the data source.
Unique labels
This option shows or hides the unique labels column, which includes only non-common labels. All common labels are displayed above.
Wrap lines
To use line wrapping in the display, set this to True. Setting this option to False results in horizontal scrolling.
Deduping
Log data can be very repetitive. Explore can help by hiding duplicate log lines. You can choose from different deduplication algorithms:
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Exact – Exact matches are done on the whole line except for date fields.
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Numbers – Matches are done on the line after stripping out numbers such as durations, IP addresses, and so on.
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Signature – The most aggressive deduping, this strips all letters and numbers. Matches are done on the remaining whitespace and punctuation.
Flip results order
You can change the order of received logs from the default descending order (newest first) to ascending order (oldest first).
Labels and detected fields
Each log row has an extendable area with its labels and detected fields, for more robust interaction. For all labels, you can filter for (positive filter) and filter out (negative filter) selected labels. Each field or label also has a stats icon to display one-time statistics in relation to all displayed logs.
Toggle detected fields
If your logs are structured in JSON or logfmt, you can show or hide detected fields. Expand a log line, and then choose the eye icon to show or hide fields.
{{< docs-imagebox img="/img/docs/explore/parsed-fields-7-2.gif" max-width="800px" caption="Toggling detected fields in Explore" >}}
Tracing integration
You can visualize traces from tracing data sources in Explore. Data sources currently supported:
For information on using the query editor, see the documentation for the specific data source.
Header
The header includes the following items:
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Header title, which shows the name of the root span and trace ID
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Search, which highlights spans that contain the searched text
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Metadata about the trace
Minimap
Minimap shows a condensed view or the trace timeline. Drag your mouse over the minimap to zoom into a smaller time range. Zooming will also update the main timeline, so it's easy to see shorter spans. If you pause on the minimap, when zoomed, you can see the Reset Selection button, which resets the zoom.
Timeline
The timeline shows a list of spans within the trace. Each span row consists of the following components:
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Expand children button: Expands or collapses all the children spans of selected span
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Service name: Name of the service that logged the span
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Operation name: Name of the operation that this span represents
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Span duration bar: Visual representation of the operation duration within the trace
Choosing anywhere on the span row shows span details.
Span details
The span details include the following items:
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Operation name
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Span metadata
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Tags (any tags associated with this span)
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Process metadata (metadata about the process that logged this span)
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Logs: List of logs logged by this span and associated key values. In case of Zipkin logs section shows Zipkin annotations.
Navigating between Explore and a dashboard
To help accelerate workflows that involve regularly switching from Explore to a dashboard and vice-versa, we’ve added the ability to return to the origin dashboard after navigating to Explore from the panel’s dropdown.
After you’ve navigated to Explore, you should notice a "Back" button in the Explore toolbar.
Simply choosing the button will return you to the origin dashboard, or, if you’d like to bring changes you make in Explore back to the dashboard, simply choose the arrow next to the button to reveal a "Return to panel with changes" menu item.
Query inspector
To help with debugging queries, Explore allows you to investigate query requests and responses, as well as query statistics, via the Query inspector. This functionality is similar to the panel inspector Stats tab and Query tab. For more information, see Inspect query performance and View raw request and response to data source.
