Grafana Alloy

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/alloy/latest/

Alloy is an open-source OpenTelemetry collector distribution that unifies telemetry collection (metrics, logs, traces, profiles) in a single binary supporting Prometheus and OTel standards.

Installation

# macOS
brew install grafana/grafana/alloy

# Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt install alloy

# Docker
docker run -v $(pwd)/config.alloy:/etc/alloy/config.alloy \
  grafana/alloy:latest run /etc/alloy/config.alloy

# Kubernetes (Helm)
helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
helm install alloy grafana/alloy -f values.yaml

# Run
alloy run /path/to/config.alloy

Default config paths:

• Linux: /etc/alloy/config.alloy
• macOS: $(brew --prefix)/etc/alloy/config.alloy
• Windows: %ProgramFiles%\GrafanaLabs\Alloy\config.alloy

Config Language Syntax

Config files use .alloy extension (UTF-8). See references/config-syntax.md for full reference.

// Block syntax: BLOCK_TYPE "LABEL" { ... }
prometheus.scrape "my_scraper" {
  targets    = [{"__address__" = "localhost:9090"}]
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
}

// Attribute: NAME = VALUE
scrape_interval = "30s"

// Reference another component's export
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]

// Environment variable
password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")

// String concat
url = "https://" + sys.env("HOST")

Core Component Patterns

See references/components.md for full component reference.

Metrics: Scrape → Remote Write

prometheus.scrape "app" {
  targets    = discovery.kubernetes.pods.targets
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
  scrape_interval = "30s"
}

prometheus.remote_write "cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = "https://prometheus-xxx.grafana.net/api/prom/push"
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("PROM_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

Logs: File → Loki

loki.source.file "app_logs" {
  targets = [
    {__path__ = "/var/log/app/*.log",   job = "app"},
    {__path__ = "/var/log/nginx/*.log", job = "nginx"},
  ]
  forward_to = [loki.write.cloud.receiver]
}

loki.write "cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = "https://logs-xxx.grafana.net/loki/api/v1/push"
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("LOKI_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

Traces: OTLP Receive → Export

otelcol.receiver.otlp "default" {
  grpc { endpoint = "0.0.0.0:4317" }
  http { endpoint = "0.0.0.0:4318" }
  output {
    traces  = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.tempo.input]
    metrics = [otelcol.exporter.prometheus.local.input]
    logs    = [otelcol.exporter.loki.cloud.input]
  }
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "tempo" {
  client {
    endpoint = "tempo-xxx.grafana.net/tempo:443"
    auth     = otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud.handler
  }
}

otelcol.auth.basic "grafana_cloud" {
  username = sys.env("TEMPO_USER")
  password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
}

Kubernetes Discovery

discovery.kubernetes "pods" {
  role = "pod"
}

discovery.relabel "pods" {
  targets = discovery.kubernetes.pods.targets
  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_pod_label_app"]
    target_label  = "app"
  }
  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_namespace"]
    target_label  = "namespace"
  }
  // Drop pods without app label
  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_pod_label_app"]
    regex         = ""
    action        = "drop"
  }
}

prometheus.scrape "kubernetes" {
  targets    = discovery.relabel.pods.output
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
}

Configuration Blocks (top-level)

logging {
  level  = "info"   // debug, info, warn, error
  format = "logfmt" // logfmt, json
}

http {
  listen_addr = "0.0.0.0:12345"  // UI at http://localhost:12345
}

// Fleet Management remote config
remotecfg {
  url = "https://fleet-management.grafana.net"
  basic_auth {
    username = sys.env("FM_USERNAME")
    password = sys.env("FM_TOKEN")
  }
  poll_interval = "1m"
}

tracing {
  sampling_fraction = 0.1
  write_to = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input]
}

Modules and Imports

// Import from local file
import.file "utils" {
  filename = "./modules/utils.alloy"
}

// Import from Git
import.git "k8s_monitoring" {
  repository = "https://github.com/grafana/alloy-modules"
  revision   = "main"
  path       = "modules/kubernetes/"
}

// Import from HTTP
import.http "shared" {
  url            = "https://config-server/alloy/shared.alloy"
  poll_frequency = "5m"
}

// Use imported component
utils.my_component "example" {
  arg = "value"
}

Clustering

clustering {
  enabled = true
}

prometheus.scrape "cluster_aware" {
  targets    = discovery.kubernetes.pods.targets
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
  clustering { enabled = true }  // distributes scrape targets across cluster nodes
}

Processing: Relabeling and Transformation

// Relabel metrics
prometheus.relabel "filter" {
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
  rule {
    source_labels = ["__name__"]
    regex         = "go_.*"
    action        = "drop"
  }
  rule {
    source_labels = ["env"]
    replacement   = "production"
    target_label  = "environment"
  }
}

// Loki pipeline processing
loki.process "parse" {
  forward_to = [loki.write.cloud.receiver]
  stage.json {
    expressions = { level = "level", msg = "message" }
  }
  stage.labels {
    values = { level = "" }
  }
  stage.drop {
    expression = ".*health check.*"
  }
}

Key Components Quick Reference

Component	Purpose
prometheus.scrape	Scrape Prometheus metrics endpoints
prometheus.remote_write	Send metrics via remote write
prometheus.relabel	Relabel/filter metrics
loki.source.file	Read logs from files
loki.source.kubernetes	Read Kubernetes pod logs
loki.write	Send logs to Loki
loki.process	Process/transform logs (pipeline stages)
otelcol.receiver.otlp	Receive OTLP data (gRPC/HTTP)
otelcol.exporter.otlp	Export via OTLP gRPC
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp	Export via OTLP HTTP
otelcol.processor.batch	Batch telemetry before exporting
otelcol.processor.memory_limiter	Limit memory usage
discovery.kubernetes	Discover Kubernetes targets
discovery.docker	Discover Docker containers
discovery.ec2	Discover AWS EC2 instances
discovery.relabel	Relabel discovery targets
pyroscope.scrape	Scrape profiling data
pyroscope.write	Send profiles to Pyroscope
beyla.ebpf	eBPF auto-instrumentation

Complete Grafana Cloud Pipeline

// METRICS
prometheus.scrape "all" {
  targets = array.concat(
    discovery.kubernetes.nodes.targets,
    discovery.kubernetes.pods.targets,
  )
  forward_to      = [prometheus.remote_write.grafana_cloud.receiver]
  scrape_interval = "60s"
}

prometheus.remote_write "grafana_cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = sys.env("PROMETHEUS_URL")
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("PROMETHEUS_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
    }
  }
  external_labels = {
    cluster = "prod-us-east",
    env     = "production",
  }
}

// LOGS
loki.source.kubernetes "pods" {
  targets    = discovery.kubernetes.pods.targets
  forward_to = [loki.process.add_labels.receiver]
}

loki.process "add_labels" {
  forward_to = [loki.write.grafana_cloud.receiver]
  stage.static_labels {
    values = { cluster = "prod-us-east" }
  }
}

loki.write "grafana_cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = sys.env("LOKI_URL")
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("LOKI_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

// TRACES
otelcol.receiver.otlp "default" {
  grpc {}
  http {}
  output {
    traces = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.grafana_cloud.input]
  }
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "grafana_cloud" {
  client {
    endpoint = sys.env("TEMPO_ENDPOINT")
    auth     = otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud.handler
  }
}

otelcol.auth.basic "grafana_cloud" {
  username = sys.env("TEMPO_USER")
  password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
}

// PROFILES
pyroscope.scrape "default" {
  targets    = [{"__address__" = "localhost:6060", "service_name" = "myapp"}]
  forward_to = [pyroscope.write.grafana_cloud.receiver]
}

pyroscope.write "grafana_cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = sys.env("PYROSCOPE_URL")
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("PYROSCOPE_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

References

• Components Reference
• Config Language Syntax
• Collection Patterns