Extend extension pipelines with pipeline groups
- Latest Dynatrace
- Tutorial
- 8-min read
- Published Jul 30, 2026
Extension pipelines ship with extensions; they're ready-made and read-only. With pipeline groups, you can add custom processing without modifying the extension pipeline itself. You create a custom base pipeline that holds the additional processing you want to apply. The extension pipeline stays as the member pipeline—it keeps its routing and role, and updates from the extension apply to it directly without affecting your base pipeline.
Who is this for?
Administrators, SREs, and engineers who use Dynatrace extensions and need to apply custom processing to the data the extensions ingest.
What will you learn?
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to:
- Create a base pipeline that holds additional custom processing for the extension data.
- Assign the member pipeline role to the extension pipeline.
- Create a pipeline group with the new base pipeline and the extension pipeline as member.
Before you begin
Prerequisites
Required permissions: settings:objects:read and settings:objects:write, both with builtin:openpipeline.<configuration-scope>.pipelines and builtin:openpipeline.<configuration-scope>.pipeline-groups scopes.
Prior knowledge
- The extension is installed and its ready-made ingest source and ready-made pipeline exist in OpenPipeline.
- You are familiar with pipeline groups and pipeline group limits.
Extend a ready-made extension pipeline
Create a base pipeline with your custom processing, assign the member role the extension pipeline, create a pipeline group, and verify the result.
1. Create the base pipeline
Create a custom pipeline with the base role. The base pipeline holds the additional processing you want to apply on top of the extension pipeline. It's not routable—once the base pipeline is in a group, the base pipeline processing is applied to data that matches both a member pipeline routing condition and the base pipeline matching condition.
In this example, the base pipeline adds an ownership tag, parses an additional attribute, and assigns a storage bucket.
-
Go to
Settings > Process and contextualize > OpenPipeline and select your configuration scope. -
Go to Pipelines > Pipeline.
-
Enter the pipeline name—for example,
Extension processing override. -
Near the pipeline name, choose the Base pipeline role.
-
Configure the stages and processors—for example:
- Go to Processing > > Fields add and configure the processors to add ownership fields:
- Name:
Set owner to team-platform - Matcher:
true - Fields:
owner=team-platform,processing.source=extension-override
- Name:
- Go to Processing > > DQL and configure the processors to parse
cloud.regionandlatency.msfrom the log content:- Name:
Parse cloud.region and latency.ms - Matcher:
true - DQL definition:
parse content, "LD 'region=' LD:cloud.region ' latency_ms=' INT:latency.ms" - Sample data:
{"content":"status=200 region=eu-west-1 latency_ms=42"}
- Name:
- Go to Storage > > Bucket assignment and configure the processors to route logs to a 90-day retention bucket (make sure the bucket exists first):
- Name:
Retain logs for 90 days - Matcher:
true - Bucket: logs-extension-90d
- Name:
- Go to Processing > > Fields add and configure the processors to add ownership fields:
-
Select Save.
2. Identify the extension pipeline
The extension pipeline acts as the member pipeline of the group. Its routing and group role remain as configured; the pipeline group references it as-is. This keeps the extension upgradeable and future extension updates won't cause conflicts.
To find the pipeline name, go to Pipelines and search for the technology.
3. Create the pipeline group
Define a pipeline group with your custom base pipeline and the extension pipeline. The composition runs the base pipeline first and then the extension pipeline.
- Go to Pipeline groups > Add group.
- Enter the group name—for example,
Extend my extensionas the group name. - Order the composition to have first the base pipeline and then the extension pipeline.
- Enable the relevant stages:
- Base pipeline: Processing and Storage
- Extension pipeline: Processing
- Select Add base pipeline and choose your base pipeline name (Extension processing override).
- In the Member pipelines section, assign the extension pipeline to the group.
- Select Preview to verify the execution order.
- Select Save.
4. Verify the extended processing
After creating the group, each record processed by the extension is first handled by the base pipeline, and then by the extension pipeline.
In 
Notebooks, query the records ingested by the extension. For example:
fetch logs| filter processing.source == "extension-override"| fields content, owner, processing.source, cloud.region, latency.ms
Confirm that both pipelines are applied:
- The original fields and parsing produced by the extension are present.
- The additional fields (
owner,processing.source), the parsedcloud.regionandlatency.ms, and thelogs-extension-90dbucket assignment from the base pipeline are applied.
Congratulations!
You've successfully applied custom processing to a ready-made extension pipeline without modifying the extension pipeline itself. Here's what you accomplished:
- Created a base pipeline with additional processing definitions, such as enrichment, attribute parsing, and bucket assignment.
- Created a pipeline group with the extension pipeline and your base pipeline, preserving the extension's static ingest routing.
- Verified in Notebooks that the extension processing and your additional processing are applied.
The extension stays upgradeable—future extension updates apply to the member pipeline without touching your base pipeline. To add processing for specific teams or services, such as metric extraction, Dynatrace intelligence, or data extraction, you can define additional processors in the base pipeline anytime.