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Live metrics

Live metrics show per-pipeline volume and latency in the UI — how much data each pipeline is processing right now, what its queue depth looks like, where back-pressure is building up.

The data comes from the collectors' own metrics (receivers/processors/exporters instrumentation), exported via the ownmetrics capability of the OpAMP extension and ingested by Ampora's metrics endpoint.

Where it appears

  • Configuration → Pipeline visualizer — overlay mode shows the per-component throughput as a thickness on the edges and a small inline number.
  • Agent details → Live metrics — per-pipeline charts for the agent.
  • Fleet flow view — aggregate flow thickness across the fleet reflects live throughput, not just topology.

Aggregation

For per-agent views, the data is the agent's own — no aggregation. For Fleet flow view and Configuration overlay, the data is summed across the matching agents:

  • Per pipeline edge: total points/sec across agents using that edge.
  • Per exporter: total bytes/sec sent.
  • Per receiver: total points/sec ingested.

Cardinality

Live metrics deliberately stay coarse. Per-component, per-signal, per-pipeline counters — yes. Per-trace-attribute breakdowns — no. Those belong in your observability backend.

Latency

Cached for 30 seconds at the aggregate level. Per-agent views are fresher (events are pushed live via the bus). The toolbar shows "Last refreshed: 12 s ago" so you know what you are looking at.

Click Refresh to force a recompute.

Enabling

Live metrics are on whenever the agent reports ReportsOwnMetrics. You do not need to configure anything on the Ampora side — the endpoint is always listening.

For agents that do not report own metrics, the UI shows static topology only (no thickness, no numbers).

What the numbers mean

  • Receiver points/sec — points ingested by the receiver, before any processing.
  • Processor accepted/refused/dropped — counters of the processor's per-batch outcomes.
  • Exporter sent/failed/queued — counters of the exporter's outbound delivery.
  • Pipeline latency p95 — receive-to-export wall clock, sampled at the batch boundary.

These are the same metric names the collector emits via Prometheus. If you cross-reference with your own scrape, the numbers should match.

What this is not

  • Not a replacement for your APM. Your real-time analysis on traces / metrics / logs lives in Tempo, Jaeger, Prometheus, Datadog, Honeycomb, etc.
  • Not stored long-term. Ampora keeps a rolling 24-hour window for the UI; analysis past that should query your scraped Prometheus.

The point of live metrics is the question "is the change I just rolled doing what I expected?" — answered in the same UI as the rollout, without context-switching to your observability tool.