Filter Metrics

Filter metrics from the OTLP, Istio, Prometheus, and runtime input to control which data your pipeline processes. You can define filters to include or exclude metrics based on their source namespace and resource type.

Overview

TIP

The following settings filter data by source. For advanced, content-based filtering and transformation, use the OpenTelemetry Transformation Language (OTTL). For details, see Transform and Filter with OTTL.

Source	Granularity	Behavior without 'namespaces' Block	Collect from All Namespaces	Collect from Specific Namespaces
OTLP (default)	Namespace	includes system namespaces	This is the default, no action needed.	Use the include or exclude filter
Istio	Namespace	excludes system namespaces	Add namespaces: {} to the input's configuration	Use the include or exclude filter
Prometheus	Namespace	excludes system namespaces	Add namespaces: {} to the input's configuration	Use the include or exclude filter
Runtime	Namespace, Resource Type*	excludes system namespaces	Add namespaces: {} to the input's configuration	Use the include or exclude filter

* The runtime input provides additional filters for Kubernetes resources such as Pods or Nodes. For details, see Select Resource Types.

Filter Metrics by Namespace

For the all inputs (otlp, prometheus, istio, and runtime), you can filter incoming metrics by namespace.

These filters only apply to metrics that have an associated namespace. The pipeline always collects any metrics that do not have a namespace.

The include and exclude filters are mutually exclusive.

• To collect metrics from specific namespaces, use the include filter:

  ...
    input:
      <otlp | prometheus | istio | runtime>:
        enabled: true
        namespaces:
          include:
            - namespaceA
            - namespaceB

• To collect metrics from all namespaces except specific ones, use the exclude filter:

  ...
    input:
      <otlp | prometheus | istio | runtime>:
        enabled: true
        namespaces:
          exclude:
            - namespaceA
            - namespaceB

Collect Metrics From System Namespaces

For otlp metrics, system namespaces are included by default.

To include system namespaces for prometheus, istio, and runtime metrics without specifying any other namespaces, explicitly configure an empty namespace object: namespaces: {}:

...
  input:
    <prometheus | istio | runtime>:
      enabled: true
      namespaces: {}