Metrics instrumentation guide

This guide describes how to develop Usage Ping metrics using metrics instrumentation.

Nomenclature

• Instrumentation class:

  • Inherits one of the metric classes: DatabaseMetric, RedisHLLMetric or GenericMetric.
  • Implements the logic that calculates the value for a Usage Ping metric.

• Metric definition The Usage Data metric YAML definition.

• Hardening: Hardening a method is the process that ensures the method fails safe, returning a fallback value like -1.

How it works

A metric definition has the instrumentation_class field, which can be set to a class.

The defined instrumentation class should have one of the existing metric classes: DatabaseMetric, RedisHLLMetric, or GenericMetric.

Using the instrumentation classes ensures that metrics can fail safe individually, without breaking the entire process of Usage Ping generation.

We have built a domain-specific language (DSL) to define the metrics instrumentation.

Database metrics

Example of a merge request that adds a database metric.

module Gitlab
  module Usage
    module Metrics
      module Instrumentations
        class CountBoardsMetric < DatabaseMetric
          operation :count

          relation { Board }
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Redis HyperLogLog metrics

Example of a merge request that adds a RedisHLL metric.

module Gitlab
  module Usage
    module Metrics
      module Instrumentations
        class CountUsersUsingApproveQuickActionMetric < RedisHLLMetric
          event_names :i_quickactions_approve
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Generic metrics

Example of a merge request that adds a generic metric.

module Gitlab
  module Usage
    module Metrics
      module Instrumentations
        class UuidMetric < GenericMetric
          value do
            Gitlab::CurrentSettings.uuid
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
end