When you troubleshoot performance issues or validate alerting rules, you need a way to query Prometheus metrics directly without building a full dashboard. Metrics Explorer provides an interactive query interface in the Managed Service for Prometheus console where you can select metrics or write Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) statements to view and verify monitoring data.
With Metrics Explorer, you can:
Run ad-hoc PromQL queries to troubleshoot issues or validate alerting rules
Browse available metrics and inspect their current values
Verify that monitoring data is being collected as expected
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure that you have:
Open Metrics Explorer
Log on to the ARMS console.
In the navigation pane on the left, choose , and click the name of the target instance.
In the navigation pane on the left, click .
Click the Metrics Explorer tab.
Run a PromQL query
On the Metrics Explorer tab, enter a PromQL statement and click Run Query.
A basic PromQL query consists of a metric name and optional label filters:
# Return all time series for a specific metric
http_requests_total
# Filter by label
http_requests_total{method="GET", status="200"}
# Aggregate across all instances
sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m])) by (method)The following table describes common PromQL query patterns:
| Pattern | Syntax | Use case |
|---|---|---|
| Instant query | metric_name | View the latest value of a metric |
| Label filter | metric_name{label="value"} | Narrow results to specific dimensions |
| Range query | metric_name[5m] | Retrieve values over a time window |
| Aggregation | sum(rate(metric_name[5m])) by (label) | Calculate rates and group results |
For the full PromQL syntax reference, see the official Prometheus documentation.