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SKILL.md
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill adaptive-metrics
Cut Grafana Cloud Metrics cost by shrinking active-series count with Adaptive Metrics aggregation rules — auto-recommendations from query history, custom exact/regex rules, label-drop config, unused-metric detection, and Alloy remote_write fallback. Use when investigating a high Mimir/Grafana Cloud bill, hunting high-cardinality labels (`pod_uid`, `service_instance_id`, `version`), pre-aggregating counters/gauges, dropping unused metrics, or measuring `grafanacloud_instance_active_series` before/after — even when the user says "reduce cardinality", "too many series", "metrics spend", "active series count is exploding", or "drop the version label" without naming Adaptive Metrics.
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill adaptive-metrics
Aggregation rules that pre-shrink high-cardinality metrics before storage — directly reduces active-series billing.
metrics:write (for the Adaptive Metrics API — adaptive-metrics.grafana.net, Bearer auth)prometheus-prod-XX.grafana.net) uses HTTP basic auth — <metrics_user> (numeric stack/instance ID) plus a token with metrics:read — not the Bearer keyRollback — delete the rule:
Full payloads (regex match, aggregation types, all caveats): references/api.md.
Rules take effect within ~5 minutes; full billing impact appears within an hour. The original high-cardinality samples keep flowing but the dropped labels no longer count toward billing.
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>" \
"https://adaptive-metrics.grafana.net/api/v1/rules" | jq '.rules[] | {id, metric_name}'
curl -s -X DELETE -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>" \
"https://adaptive-metrics.grafana.net/api/v1/rules/<RULE_ID>"
# Or in the UI: Rules → row → Disable# 1. Sanity-check the metric is not used WITH that label in dashboards/alerts
grep -r 'process_cpu_seconds_total' dashboards/ alerts/ | grep -E 'version|go_version'
# Expect no hits → safe to drop.
# 2. Create the rule
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
"https://adaptive-metrics.grafana.net/api/v1/rules" \
-d '{"rules":[{"metric_name":"process_cpu_seconds_total","match_type":"MATCH_TYPE_EXACT",
"drop_labels":["version","go_version"],
"aggregations":[{"type":"AGGREGATION_TYPE_SUM"}]}]}'
# 3. Verify — same count() query as above; series count should drop within 5 min.# 1. List unused metrics
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>" \
"https://adaptive-metrics.grafana.net/api/v1/usage-analysis?filter=unused" | \
jq '.metrics[] | {metric_name, series_count, last_queried}'
# 2. Confirm not referenced in dashboards / alerts / recording rules
grep -r '<METRIC_NAME>' dashboards/ alerts/ recording-rules/
# 3. Add a write_relabel_config drop in Alloy (full block in references/api.md)
# Reload Alloy: curl -X POST http://localhost:12345/-/reload
# 4. Verify — the metric should no longer appear in series counts after ~10 min
curl -s -u "<metrics_user>:<metrics_token>" \
'https://prometheus-prod-XX.grafana.net/api/prom/api/v1/label/__name__/values' | jq '.data | index("<METRIC_NAME>")' # → null# Total active series (billed unit)
grafanacloud_instance_active_series
# Series specifically dropped by Adaptive Metrics rules
grafanacloud_instance_active_series_dropped_by_aggregation_rules