prom-query

Prometheus Metrics Query & Alert Interpreter — query metrics, interpret timeseries, triage alerts

prom-query — Prometheus Metrics Query & Alert Interpreter

You have access to a Prometheus-compatible metrics server. Use this skill to query metrics, check alerts, inspect targets, and explore available metrics. You can query Prometheus, Thanos, Mimir, and VictoriaMetrics — they all share the same HTTP API.

Commands

Command	Purpose	Example
query <promql>	Instant query (current value)	prom-query query 'up'
range <promql> [--start=] [--end=] [--step=]	Range query (timeseries over time)	prom-query range 'rate(http_requests_total[5m])' --start=-1h --step=1m
alerts [--state=firing|pending|inactive]	List active alerts	prom-query alerts --state=firing
targets [--state=active|dropped|any]	Scrape target health	prom-query targets
explore [pattern]	Search available metrics by name pattern	prom-query explore 'http_request'
rules [--type=alert|record]	Alerting & recording rules	prom-query rules --type=alert

How to Translate Natural Language to PromQL

When the user asks a question about their system, translate it to PromQL using these patterns:

Error Rate

text

# "What's the error rate for the API?"
rate(http_requests_total{code=~"5.."}[5m]) / rate(http_requests_total[5m])

# "Error rate for the payments service"
rate(http_requests_total{service="payments", code=~"5.."}[5m])

# "4xx and 5xx errors per second"
sum(rate(http_requests_total{code=~"[45].."}[5m])) by (code)

Latency (Histograms)

text

# "P99 latency"
histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) by (le))

# "P50 latency by service"
histogram_quantile(0.50, sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) by (le, service))

# "Average request duration"
rate(http_request_duration_seconds_sum[5m]) / rate(http_request_duration_seconds_count[5m])

CPU Usage

text

# "CPU usage per instance"
100 - (avg by (instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode="idle"}[5m])) * 100)

# "CPU usage per pod (Kubernetes)"
sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{container!=""}[5m])) by (pod, namespace)

# "Which pods use the most CPU?"
topk(10, sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{container!=""}[5m])) by (pod, namespace))

Memory

text

# "Memory usage percentage per instance"
(1 - (node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes)) * 100

# "Memory usage per pod (Kubernetes)"
sum(container_memory_working_set_bytes{container!=""}) by (pod, namespace)

# "Pods using more than 1GB RAM"
sum(container_memory_working_set_bytes{container!=""}) by (pod, namespace) > 1e9

Disk

text

# "Disk usage percentage"
(1 - (node_filesystem_avail_bytes{mountpoint="/"} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{mountpoint="/"})) * 100

# "Disk will be full in 4 hours?" (linear prediction)
predict_linear(node_filesystem_avail_bytes{mountpoint="/"}[1h], 4*3600) < 0

Network

text

# "Network traffic in/out per interface"
rate(node_network_receive_bytes_total[5m])
rate(node_network_transmit_bytes_total[5m])

Kubernetes-Specific

text

# "How many pods are not ready?"
sum(kube_pod_status_ready{condition="false"}) by (namespace)

# "Pods in CrashLoopBackOff"
kube_pod_container_status_waiting_reason{reason="CrashLoopBackOff"}

# "Deployment replica mismatch"
kube_deployment_spec_replicas != kube_deployment_status_available_replicas

# "Node conditions"
kube_node_status_condition{condition="Ready", status="true"} == 0

General Patterns

text

# "Show me everything about <service>"
# First, explore what metrics exist:
prom-query explore '<service_name>'

# "Is everything up?"
prom-query query 'up'

# "What changed in the last hour?"
# Use range query with the relevant metric and look for step changes:
prom-query range '<metric>' --start=-1h --step=1m

# Rate of any counter:
rate(<counter_metric>[5m])

# Sum across labels:
sum(<metric>) by (<label>)

# Top N:
topk(10, <metric>)

How to Interpret Timeseries Data

When you get range query results, look for:

1. Trends: Is the value going up, down, or flat over time? Compare first vs last values.
2. Spikes: Look at min/max vs average. A large gap suggests spikes or dips.
3. Step changes: Did the value suddenly jump to a new baseline? (deployment, config change)
4. Periodicity: Does the pattern repeat? (daily traffic patterns, cron jobs)
5. Correlation: If querying multiple metrics, do changes happen at the same timestamps?

Reading the Summary Fields

Range query results include automatic summaries for each series:

• min / max / avg: Statistical summary of all values
• first / last: Start and end values (shows trend direction)
• pointCount: Number of data points
• downsampled: Whether the step was automatically increased to limit data volume

Smart Context Management

The script automatically downsamples range queries that would return more than 500 data points. When downsampled: true, tell the user the step was adjusted and offer to zoom into a narrower time window for full resolution.

Incident Triage Workflow

When helping with an incident or investigating a problem:

1. Start with alerts: prom-query alerts --state=firing — see what's actually firing
2. Check targets: prom-query targets — are any scrape targets down?
3. Query the specific metric mentioned in the alert
4. Range query to see the trend leading up to the alert
5. Explore related metrics to find correlation
6. Check rules to understand alert thresholds

Alert Interpretation

When presenting alerts to the user:

• Group by severity (critical → warning → info)
• Highlight how long each alert has been firing (from activeAt)
• Include the summary/description annotation
• If the alert has a value, explain what it means in context
• Suggest next steps: which metric to query for more detail

Discord v2 Delivery Mode (OpenClaw v2026.2.14+)

When running in a Discord channel:

• Send a compact first summary (firing alerts, top impacted service, suggested next query).
• Keep the first message under ~1200 characters and avoid wide tables initially.
• If Discord components are available, include quick actions:
  • Show Last 1h Trend
  • List Firing Alerts
  • Explore Related Metrics
• If components are unavailable, provide the same options as a numbered list.
• For long timeseries explanations, send short chunks (<=15 lines per message).

Important Notes

• All operations are read-only. This skill never modifies Prometheus data, rules, or configuration.
• Large result sets are automatically limited and summarized.
• The explore command uses regex pattern matching (case-insensitive).
• Time arguments accept: relative (-1h, -30m, -2d), epoch timestamps, or ISO8601 dates.
• If PROMETHEUS_TOKEN is set, it's sent as a Bearer token. Never include tokens in your responses.

Error Handling

If a query fails:

• "Cannot reach Prometheus" → Check PROMETHEUS_URL and network connectivity
• PromQL parse error → The query syntax is wrong. Fix and retry.
• "no data" → The metric may not exist, or the label selector is too specific. Try explore to find the right metric name.
• Timeout → The query is too expensive. Add filters, reduce the time range, or use topk().

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