Prometheus Metrics Requirements

NOFire AI analyzes your infrastructure by collecting metrics from Prometheus to build causal relationships between services, kubernetes resources, and external dependencies. Ensure the following metrics are available in your Prometheus instance.

​

Prerequisites

The following exporters must be configured and running:

Component	Purpose	Required
kube-state-metrics	Kubernetes resource state	✅ Required
Prometheus Node Exporter	Node-level metrics	✅ Required
cAdvisor Exporter	Container-level metrics	✅ Required
OpenTelemetry Collector	Service discovery and tracing	⭕ Optional
CloudWatch Exporter	AWS RDS discovery	⭕ Optional

​

Required Metrics

​

Service Discovery Metrics

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
target_info	job, service_name, service_version, k8s_deployment_name, k8s_namespace_name, k8s_pod_name, k8s_node_name	Service discovery and metadata collection

Additional useful labels for target_info:

• host_arch, container_id, process_runtime_name, process_runtime_version
• os_type, os_version, telemetry_sdk_name, telemetry_sdk_language

​

Service Dependencies

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
service_dependencies	client, server, cluster	Inter-service communication tracking

​

Observability Metrics for Investigation & Analysis

Important Note: The metrics listed above are specifically for entity graph building and relationship discovery. For comprehensive root cause analysis and performance investigation, you’ll also need standard observability metrics.

​

Required Standard Metrics Categories

Category	Purpose	Documentation
Container Metrics	Pod/container performance analysis	cAdvisor Metrics
Node Metrics	Node-level performance analysis	Node Exporter Metrics
Service Metrics	Application performance analysis	OpenTelemetry Metrics, Prometheus Best Practices
Database Metrics	External service performance	CloudWatch RDS Metrics

These standard observability metrics enable:

• Performance investigation - CPU, memory, disk, network utilization
• Root cause analysis - Error rates, latencies, saturation metrics
• Capacity planning - Resource usage trends and limits
• Service health monitoring - Request rates, error rates, response times

Recommendation: Use industry-standard exporters like Prometheus Node Exporter, cAdvisor, and OpenTelemetry instrumentation to collect these observability metrics alongside the entity graph metrics listed in this document.

​

Kubernetes Infrastructure Metrics

​

Node Metrics

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_node_info	node, cluster, container_runtime_version, provider_id, os_image, kubelet_version, kernel_version	Node discovery and metadata

​

Pod Metrics

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_pod_info	pod, namespace, node, cluster, created_by_kind, created_by_name	Pod discovery and ownership
kube_pod_container_info	pod, namespace, container, image, image_spec, cluster	Container information
kube_pod_labels	pod, namespace, cluster, label_*	Pod label selectors for service relationships
kube_pod_annotations	pod, namespace, cluster, annotation_*	Pod metadata and relationships

​

Deployment and Scaling Metrics

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_deployment_spec_replicas	deployment, namespace, cluster	Deployment scaling information
kube_deployment_status_replicas_available	deployment, namespace, cluster	Deployment status
kube_replicaset_spec_replicas	replicaset, namespace, cluster	ReplicaSet scaling
kube_replicaset_status_replicas_ready	replicaset, namespace, cluster	ReplicaSet status
kube_statefulset_spec_replicas	statefulset, namespace, cluster	StatefulSet scaling
kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready	statefulset, namespace, cluster	StatefulSet status

​

Container Resources

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_pod_container_resource_limits	pod, namespace, container, resource, unit, cluster	Resource allocation tracking
kube_pod_container_resource_requests	pod, namespace, container, resource, unit, cluster	Resource allocation tracking

​

Kubernetes Resource State Metrics

​

ConfigMaps

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_configmap_info	configmap, namespace, cluster, resource_version, uid	Configuration tracking
kube_configmap_labels	configmap, namespace, cluster, label_*	ConfigMap relationship detection
kube_configmap_annotations	configmap, namespace, cluster, annotation_*	ConfigMap metadata relationships
kube_configmap_metadata_resource_version	configmap, namespace, cluster	Detects changes in ConfigMap metadata

​

Secrets

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_secret_info	secret, namespace, cluster, type, resource_version, uid	Secret tracking
kube_secret_labels	secret, namespace, cluster, label_*	Secret relationship detection
kube_secret_annotations	secret, namespace, cluster, annotation_*	Secret metadata relationships
kube_secret_metadata_resource_version	secret, namespace, cluster	Detects changes in secret metadata

​

Persistent Storage

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_persistentvolumeclaim_info	persistentvolumeclaim, namespace, cluster, volumename, storageclass, uid	Storage tracking
kube_persistentvolume_info	persistentvolume, cluster, storageclass, uid, host_path	Volume tracking
kube_pod_spec_volumes_persistentvolumeclaim_info	pod, namespace, volume, persistentvolumeclaim, cluster	Pod-storage relationships

​

Services

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_service_info	service, namespace, cluster, type, cluster_ip, uid	Service networking
kube_service_labels	service, namespace, cluster, label_*	Service label selectors for pod targeting
kube_service_annotations	service, namespace, cluster, annotation_*	Service routing and ingress relationships

​

Ingress

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
kube_ingress_info	ingress, namespace, cluster, ingressclass, uid	Traffic routing
kube_ingress_path	ingress, namespace, cluster, service_name, service_port, host, path	Routing relationships
kube_ingress_labels	ingress, namespace, cluster, label_*	Ingress routing and controller relationships
kube_ingress_annotations	ingress, namespace, cluster, annotation_*	Ingress routing rules and TLS configuration
kube_ingress_metadata_resource_version	ingress, namespace, cluster	Detects changes in Ingress configuration

​

External Dependencies (Optional)

​

AWS RDS Discovery

Metric Name	Labels	Purpose
aws_rds_database_connections_average	DBInstanceIdentifier, region	Database discovery

​

Label Requirements

​

Critical Labels

These labels must be present and consistent across metrics:

Label	Description	Used In
cluster	Kubernetes cluster identifier	All kube-state metrics
namespace	Kubernetes namespace	Pod, Service, ConfigMap, Secret metrics
job	Service job identifier	Service discovery

​

Configurable Label Mappings

If your metrics use different label names, configure the label mapping:

Standard Label	Default Mapping	Alternative Names
job	job	service_name, application
namespace	namespace	k8s_namespace_name
pod	pod	k8s_pod_name
node	node	k8s_node_name
container	container	container_name

​

Validation

​

Health Check Queries

Use these Prometheus queries to verify metric availability:

Check	Query	Expected Result
Service Discovery	count by (job) (target_info)	> 0 services per job
Kubernetes Nodes	count by (cluster) (kube_node_info)	> 0 nodes per cluster
Kubernetes Pods	count by (cluster) (kube_pod_info)	> 0 pods per cluster
ConfigMaps	count by (namespace) (kube_configmap_info)	≥ 0 per namespace
Services	count by (namespace) (kube_service_info)	≥ 0 per namespace

​

Missing Metrics Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely Cause	Solution
No services in graph	Missing target_info	Configure OpenTelemetry collector
Missing Kubernetes resources	kube-state-metrics not running	Deploy and configure kube-state-metrics
Incomplete relationships	Missing label/annotation metrics	Enable label and annotation collection
Poor relationship detection	Inconsistent labeling	Standardize resource labels

​

Integration Requirements

​

Minimum Versions

Component	Minimum Version	Notes
kube-state-metrics	v2.0+	For complete label support
OpenTelemetry Collector	v0.60+	For target_info compatibility
Prometheus	v2.30+	For advanced query features

​

RBAC Requirements

Ensure kube-state-metrics has read access to:

• Nodes, Pods, Deployments, ReplicaSets, StatefulSets
• ConfigMaps, Secrets, Services, Ingresses
• PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims

This metrics configuration will enable comprehensive infrastructure visibility and accurate dependency mapping in your entity graphs.