Metrics API - GET metric descriptor

Gets the parameters of the specified metric.

The request produces one of the following types of payload, depending on the value of the Accept request header:

  • application/json
  • text/csv; header=present—a CSV table with header row
  • text/csv; header=absent—a CSV table without header row

If no Accept header is provided with the request, an application/json payload is returned.

GETSaaShttps://{your-environment-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/metrics/{metricKey}
Environment ActiveGateCluster ActiveGatehttps://{your-activegate-domain}:9999/e/{your-environment-id}/api/v2/metrics/{metricKey}

Authentication

To execute this request, you need an access token with metrics.read scope.

To learn how to obtain and use it, see Tokens and authentication.

Parameters

ParameterTypeDescriptionInRequired
metricKeystring

The key of the required metric.

You can set additional transformation operators, separated by a colon (:). See Metrics selector transformations in Dynatrace Documentation for additional information on available result transformations and syntax.

pathrequired

Response

Response codes

CodeTypeDescription
200MetricDescriptor

Success

404-

A metric has not been found.

406-

Not acceptable. The requested media type is not supported. Check the Accept header of your request.

4XXErrorEnvelope

Client side error.

5XXErrorEnvelope

Server side error.

Response body objects

The MetricDescriptor object

The descriptor of a metric.

ElementTypeDescription
aggregationTypesstring[]

The list of allowed aggregations for this metric.

  • auto
  • avg
  • count
  • max
  • median
  • min
  • percentile
  • sum
  • value
billableboolean

If truethe usage of metric is billable.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

createdinteger

The timestamp of metric creation.

Built-in metrics and metric expressions have the value of null.

dduBillableboolean

If true the usage of metric consumes Davis data units. Deprecated and always false for Dynatrace Platform Subscription. Superseded by isBillable.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

defaultAggregationMetricDefaultAggregation

The default aggregation of a metric.

descriptionstring

A short description of the metric.

dimensionCardinalitiesMetricDimensionCardinality[]

The cardinalities of MINT metric dimensions.

dimensionDefinitionsMetricDimensionDefinition[]

The fine metric division (for example, process group and process ID for some process-related metric).

For ingested metrics, dimensions that doesn't have have any data within the last 15 days are omitted.

displayNamestring

The name of the metric in the user interface.

entityTypestring[]

List of admissible primary entity types for this metric. Can be used for the type predicate in the entitySelector.

impactRelevantboolean

The metric is (true) or is not (false) impact relevant.

An impact-relevant metric is highly dependent on other metrics and changes because an underlying root-cause metric has changed.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

lastWritteninteger

The timestamp when the metric was last written.

Has the value of null for metric expressions or if the data has never been written.

latencyinteger

The latency of the metric, in minutes.

The latency is the expected reporting delay (for example, caused by constraints of cloud vendors or other third-party data sources) between the observation of a metric data point and its availability in Dynatrace.

The allowed value range is from 1 to 60 minutes.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

maximumValuenumber

The maximum allowed value of the metric.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

metricIdstring

The fully qualified key of the metric.

If a transformation has been used it is reflected in the metric key.

metricSelectorstring

The metric selector that is used when querying a func: metric.

metricValueTypeMetricValueType

The value type for the metric.

minimumValuenumber

The minimum allowed value of the metric.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

resolutionInfSupportedboolean

If 'true', resolution=Inf can be applied to the metric query.

rootCauseRelevantboolean

The metric is (true) or is not (false) root cause relevant.

A root-cause relevant metric represents a strong indicator for a faulty component.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

scalarboolean

Indicates whether the metric expression resolves to a scalar (true) or to a series (false). A scalar result always contains one data point. The amount of data points in a series result depends on the resolution you're using.

tagsstring[]

The tags applied to the metric.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

transformationsstring[]

Transform operators that could be appended to the current transformation list.

  • asGauge
  • default
  • delta
  • evaluateModel
  • filter
  • fold
  • last
  • lastReal
  • limit
  • merge
  • names
  • parents
  • partition
  • rate
  • rollup
  • setUnit
  • smooth
  • sort
  • splitBy
  • timeshift
  • toUnit
unitstring

The unit of the metric.

unitDisplayFormatstring

The raw value is stored in bits or bytes. The user interface can display it in these numeral systems:

Binary: 1 MiB = 1024 KiB = 1,048,576 bytes

Decimal: 1 MB = 1000 kB = 1,000,000 bytes

If not set, the decimal system is used.

Metric expressions don't return this field.

  • binary
  • decimal
warningsstring[]

A list of potential warnings that affect this ID. For example deprecated feature usage etc.

The MetricDefaultAggregation object

The default aggregation of a metric.

ElementTypeDescription
parameternumber

The percentile to be delivered. Valid values are between 0 and 100.

Applicable only to the percentile aggregation type.

typestring

The type of default aggregation.

  • auto
  • avg
  • count
  • max
  • median
  • min
  • percentile
  • sum
  • value

The MetricDimensionCardinality object

The dimension cardinalities of a metric.

ElementTypeDescription
estimateinteger

The cardinality estimate of the dimension.

keystring

The key of the dimension.

It must be unique within the metric.

relativenumber

The relative cardinality of the dimension expressed as percentage

The MetricDimensionDefinition object

The dimension of a metric.

ElementTypeDescription
displayNamestring

The display name of the dimension.

indexinteger

The unique 0-based index of the dimension.

Appending transformations such as :names or :parents may change the indexes of dimensions. null is used for the dimensions of a metric with flexible dimensions, which can be referenced with their dimension key, but do not have an intrinsic order that could be used for the index.

keystring

The key of the dimension.

It must be unique within the metric.

namestring

The name of the dimension.

typestring

The type of the dimension.

  • ENTITY
  • NUMBER
  • OTHER
  • STRING
  • VOID

The MetricValueType object

The value type for the metric.

ElementTypeDescription
typestring

The metric value type

  • error
  • score
  • unknown

Response body JSON model

{
"aggregationTypes": [
"auto",
"value"
],
"created": 1597400123451,
"dduBillable": false,
"defaultAggregation": {
"type": "value"
},
"description": "Percentage of user-space CPU time currently utilized, per host.",
"dimensionCardinalities": [
{
"estimate": 20,
"key": "dt.entity.host",
"relative": 0.2
}
],
"dimensionDefinitions": [
{
"displayName": "Host",
"index": 0,
"key": "dt.entity.host",
"name": "Host",
"type": "ENTITY"
}
],
"displayName": "CPU user",
"entityType": [
"HOST"
],
"lastWritten": 1597400717783,
"latency": 1,
"metricId": "builtin:host.cpu.user:splitBy(\"dt.entity.host\"):max:fold",
"metricValueType": {
"type": "unknown"
},
"scalar": false,
"tags": [],
"transformations": [
"filter",
"fold",
"limit",
"merge",
"names",
"parents",
"timeshift",
"rate",
"sort",
"last",
"splitBy"
],
"unit": "Percent"
}

Example

In this example, the request queries the parameters of three metrics: builtin:host.cpu.idle, builtin:host.cpu.usage, and builtin:host.disk.avail.

The builtin:host.cpu.idle and builtin:host.cpu.usage metrics have the same parent and their selector is combined into builtin:host.cpu.(idle,usage).

The response is in application/json format.

Curl

curl -L -X GET 'https://mySampleEnv.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/metrics/builtin:host.disk.avail' \
-H 'Authorization: Api-Token dt0c01.abc123.abcdefjhij1234567890' \
-H 'Accept: application/json'

Request URL

https://mySampleEnv.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/metrics/builtin:host.disk.avail

Response body

{
"metricId": "builtin:host.disk.avail",
"displayName": "Disk available",
"description": "",
"unit": "Byte",
"entityType": [
"HOST"
],
"aggregationTypes": [
"auto",
"avg",
"max",
"min"
],
"transformations": [
"filter",
"fold",
"merge",
"names",
"parents"
],
"defaultAggregation": {
"type": "avg"
},
"dimensionDefinitions": [
{
"key": "dt.entity.host",
"name": "Host",
"index": 0,
"type": "ENTITY"
},
{
"key": "dt.entity.disk",
"name": "Disk",
"index": 1,
"type": "ENTITY"
}
]
}

The CSV table with header row looks like this. To obtain it, change the Accept header to text/csv; header=present.

metricId,displayName,description,unit,entityType,aggregationTypes,transformations,defaultAggregation,dimensionDefinitions
builtin:host.cpu.usage,CPU usage %,Percentage of CPU time currently utilized.,Percent,[HOST],"[auto, avg, max, min]","[filter, fold, merge, names, parents]",avg,[Host:ENTITY]

Response code

200