Query and transform data

For data sources included with Grafana, see Built-in data sources.

For data sources included with Grafana Enterprise editiion, see Connect to Enterprise data sources.

Data source selector – Selects the data source to query.

Query options: – Sets maximum data retrieval parameters and query run time intervals.

Query inspector button: – Opens the query inspector panel, where you can view and optimize your query.

Query editor list: – Lists the queries you’ve written.

Expressions: – Uses the expression builder to create alert expressions. For more information about expressions, see Write expression queries.

Max data points – If the data source supports it, this sets the maximum number of data points for each series returned. If the query returns more data points than the max data points setting, then the data source reduces the number of points returned by aggregating them together by average, max, or another function.

You can limit the number of points to improve query performance or smooth the visualized line. The default value is the width (or number of pixels) of the graph, because you can only visualize as many data points as the graph panel has room to display.

With streaming data, Grafana uses the max data points value for the rolling buffer. Streaming is a continuous flow of data, and buffering divides the stream into chunks. For example, Loki streams data in its live tailing mode.

Min interval – Sets a minimum limit for the automatically calculated interval, which is typically the minimum scrape interval. If a data point is saved every 15 seconds, you don’t benefit from having an interval lower than that. You can also set this to a higher minimum than the scrape interval to retrieve queries that are more coarse-grained and well-functioning.

Interval – Sets a time span that you can use when aggregating or grouping data points by time.

Grafana automatically calculates an appropriate interval that you can use as a variable in templated queries. The variable is measured in either seconds ($__interval) or milliseconds ($__interval_ms).

Intervals are typically used in aggregation functions like sum or average. For example, this is a Prometheus query that uses the interval variable: rate(http_requests_total[$__interval]).

This automatic interval is calculated based on the width of the graph. As the user zooms out on a visualization, the interval grows, resulting in a more coarse-grained aggregation. Likewise, if the user zooms in, the interval decreases, resulting in a more fine-grained aggregation.

For more information, see Global variables.

Relative time – Overrides the relative time range for individual panels, which causes them to be different than what is selected in the dashboard time picker in the top-right corner of the dashboard. You can use this to show metrics from different time periods or days on the same dashboard.

Time shift – Overrides the time range for individual panels by shifting its start and end relative to the time picker. For example, you can shift the time range for the panel to be two hours earlier than the dashboard time picker.

Cache timeout – (Visible only if available in the data source) Overrides the default cache timeout if your time series store has a query cache. Specify this value as a numeric value in seconds.