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Prometheus Configuration

Seth HobsonCommunityCreated by Seth Hobson

  • Skill
  • Tool integration
  • Cloud and DevOps
  • MIT
  • Low risk
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From the author

Set up Prometheus for comprehensive metric collection, storage, and monitoring of infrastructure and applications. Use when implementing metrics collection, setting up monitoring infrastructure, or configuring alerting systems.
— the description by Seth Hobson

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a structured approach to setting up Prometheus for monitoring environments. It covers installation patterns for Kubernetes and Docker, configuration of scrape targets, service discovery mechanisms, and best practices for maintaining a robust monitoring system. The documentation includes guidance on recording rules, alert configuration, and scaling strategies for long-term storage.

What it does

  • Provides installation patterns for Prometheus using Helm or Docker Compose.
  • Explains the structure and configuration of the main configuration file.
  • Details methods for static and dynamic service discovery.
  • Outlines best practices for metric naming, retention, and high availability.
  • Offers guidance on integrating with Alertmanager and long-term storage solutions.
  • Includes methods for verifying scrape targets and configuration status.

When to use it

  • When deploying a new Prometheus monitoring instance.
  • When adding new infrastructure or application targets to an existing monitoring setup.
  • When designing alerting rules or recording rules for complex queries.
  • When implementing service discovery for dynamic environments like Kubernetes.
  • When optimizing metric retention and storage configurations.

Advantages

  • Centralizes metric collection and monitoring configuration.
  • Supports both static and dynamic service discovery patterns.
  • Provides clear architectural guidance for scaling and long-term storage.
  • Includes actionable patterns for common deployment scenarios.

Usage examples

“How do I set up Prometheus on Kubernetes using Helm?”
The skill provides the specific repository addition and installation commands to deploy the kube-prometheus-stack in a dedicated namespace.
“Show me how to configure Prometheus to scrape targets from a file.”
The skill demonstrates the use of file-based service discovery within the scrape configuration, including the format for target files.
“How can I verify that my Prometheus configuration is valid?”
The skill provides instructions on how to check the status of the configuration via the API.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/wshobson/prometheus-configuration/download

  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip prometheus-configuration.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Seth Hobson

Prometheus Configuration

Complete guide to Prometheus setup, metric collection, scrape configuration, and recording rules.

Purpose

Configure Prometheus for comprehensive metric collection, alerting, and monitoring of infrastructure and applications.

When to Use

  • Set up Prometheus monitoring

  • Configure metric scraping

  • Create recording rules

  • Design alert rules

  • Implement service discovery

Detailed patterns and worked examples

Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.

Best Practices

  1. Use consistent naming for metrics (prefix_name_unit)

  2. Set appropriate scrape intervals (15-60s typical)

  3. Use recording rules for expensive queries

  4. Implement high availability (multiple Prometheus instances)

  5. Configure retention based on storage capacity

  6. Use relabeling for metric cleanup

  7. Monitor Prometheus itself

  8. Implement federation for large deployments

  9. Use Thanos/Cortex for long-term storage

  10. Document custom metrics

Troubleshooting

Check scrape targets:

curl http://localhost:9090/api/v1/targets

Check configuration:

curl http://localhost:9090/api/v1/status/config

Test query:

curl 'http://localhost:9090/api/v1/query?query=up'

Related Skills

  • grafana-dashboards - For visualization

  • slo-implementation - For SLO monitoring

  • distributed-tracing - For request tracing

Files

references/details.md

prometheus-configuration — detailed patterns and worked examples

Prometheus Architecture

┌──────────────┐
│ Applications │ ← Instrumented with client libraries
└──────┬───────┘
       │ /metrics endpoint
       ↓
┌──────────────┐
│  Prometheus  │ ← Scrapes metrics periodically
│    Server    │
└──────┬───────┘
       │
       ├─→ AlertManager (alerts)
       ├─→ Grafana (visualization)
       └─→ Long-term storage (Thanos/Cortex)

Installation

Kubernetes with Helm
helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack \
  --namespace monitoring \
  --create-namespace \
  --set prometheus.prometheusSpec.retention=30d \
  --set prometheus.prometheusSpec.storageVolumeSize=50Gi
Docker Compose
version: "3.8"
services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:v3.2
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
      - prometheus-data:/prometheus
    command:
      - "--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
      - "--storage.tsdb.path=/prometheus"
      - "--storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d"

volumes:
  prometheus-data:

Configuration File

prometheus.yml:

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s
  evaluation_interval: 15s
  external_labels:
    cluster: "production"
    region: "us-west-2"

# Alertmanager configuration
alerting:
  alertmanagers:
    - static_configs:
        - targets:
            - alertmanager:9093

# Load rules files
rule_files:
  - /etc/prometheus/rules/*.yml

# Scrape configurations
scrape_configs:
  # Prometheus itself
  - job_name: "prometheus"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]

  # Node exporters
  - job_name: "node-exporter"
    static_configs:
      - targets:
          - "node1:9100"
          - "node2:9100"
          - "node3:9100"
    relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__address__]
        target_label: instance
        regex: "([^:]+)(:[0-9]+)?"
        replacement: "${1}"

  # Kubernetes pods with annotations
  - job_name: "kubernetes-pods"
    kubernetes_sd_configs:
      - role: pod
    relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_scrape]
        action: keep
        regex: true
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_path]
        action: replace
        target_label: __metrics_path__
        regex: (.+)
      - source_labels:
          [__address__, __meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_port]
        action: replace
        regex: ([^:]+)(?::\d+)?;(\d+)
        replacement: $1:$2
        target_label: __address__
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_namespace]
        action: replace
        target_label: namespace
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_name]
        action: replace
        target_label: pod

  # Application metrics
  - job_name: "my-app"
    static_configs:
      - targets:
          - "app1.example.com:9090"
          - "app2.example.com:9090"
    metrics_path: "/metrics"
    scheme: "https"
    tls_config:
      ca_file: /etc/prometheus/ca.crt
      cert_file: /etc/prometheus/client.crt
      key_file: /etc/prometheus/client.key

Scrape Configurations

Static Targets
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "static-targets"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["host1:9100", "host2:9100"]
        labels:
          env: "production"
          region: "us-west-2"
File-based Service Discovery
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "file-sd"
    file_sd_configs:
      - files:
          - /etc/prometheus/targets/*.json
          - /etc/prometheus/targets/*.yml
        refresh_interval: 5m

targets/production.json:

[
  {
    "targets": ["app1:9090", "app2:9090"],
    "labels": {
      "env": "production",
      "service": "api"
    }
  }
]
Kubernetes Service Discovery
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "kubernetes-services"
    kubernetes_sd_configs:
      - role: service
    relabel_configs:
      - source_labels:
          [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_scrape]
        action: keep
        regex: true
      - source_labels:
          [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_scheme]
        action: replace
        target_label: __scheme__
        regex: (https?)
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_path]
        action: replace
        target_label: __metrics_path__
        regex: (.+)

Recording Rules

Create pre-computed metrics for frequently queried expressions:

# /etc/prometheus/rules/recording_rules.yml
groups:
  - name: api_metrics
    interval: 15s
    rules:
      # HTTP request rate per service
      - record: job:http_requests:rate5m
        expr: sum by (job) (rate(http_requests_total[5m]))

      # Error rate percentage
      - record: job:http_requests_errors:rate5m
        expr: sum by (job) (rate(http_requests_total{status=~"5.."}[5m]))

      - record: job:http_requests_error_rate:percentage
        expr: |
          (job:http_requests_errors:rate5m / job:http_requests:rate5m) * 100

      # P95 latency
      - record: job:http_request_duration:p95
        expr: |
          histogram_quantile(0.95,
            sum by (job, le) (rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m]))
          )

  - name: resource_metrics
    interval: 30s
    rules:
      # CPU utilization percentage
      - record: instance:node_cpu:utilization
        expr: |
          100 - (avg by (instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode="idle"}[5m])) * 100)

      # Memory utilization percentage
      - record: instance:node_memory:utilization
        expr: |
          100 - ((node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes) * 100)

      # Disk usage percentage
      - record: instance:node_disk:utilization
        expr: |
          100 - ((node_filesystem_avail_bytes / node_filesystem_size_bytes) * 100)

Alert Rules

# /etc/prometheus/rules/alert_rules.yml
groups:
  - name: availability
    interval: 30s
    rules:
      - alert: ServiceDown
        expr: up{job="my-app"} == 0
        for: 1m
        labels:
          severity: critical
        annotations:
          summary: "Service {{ $labels.instance }} is down"
          description: "{{ $labels.job }} has been down for more than 1 minute"

      - alert: HighErrorRate
        expr: job:http_requests_error_rate:percentage > 5
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "High error rate for {{ $labels.job }}"
          description: "Error rate is {{ $value }}% (threshold: 5%)"

      - alert: HighLatency
        expr: job:http_request_duration:p95 > 1
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "High latency for {{ $labels.job }}"
          description: "P95 latency is {{ $value }}s (threshold: 1s)"

  - name: resources
    interval: 1m
    rules:
      - alert: HighCPUUsage
        expr: instance:node_cpu:utilization > 80
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "High CPU usage on {{ $labels.instance }}"
          description: "CPU usage is {{ $value }}%"

      - alert: HighMemoryUsage
        expr: instance:node_memory:utilization > 85
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "High memory usage on {{ $labels.instance }}"
          description: "Memory usage is {{ $value }}%"

      - alert: DiskSpaceLow
        expr: instance:node_disk:utilization > 90
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: critical
        annotations:
          summary: "Low disk space on {{ $labels.instance }}"
          description: "Disk usage is {{ $value }}%"

Validation

# Validate configuration
promtool check config prometheus.yml

# Validate rules
promtool check rules /etc/prometheus/rules/*.yml

# Test query
promtool query instant http://localhost:9090 'up'

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs network access

Security

What our scanner noticed· Low risk

  • Instructions that use the network

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by
Seth Hobson
Publisher
Seth Hobson (Community)
Source
wshobson/agents · plugins/observability-monitoring/skills/prometheus-configuration · commit 4bde316
Licence
MIT License (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
Synced

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Seth Hobson or Seth Hobson.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download prometheus-configuration.zip