Prometheus exposition format is a text-based wire format for representing metrics and their labels. It has become a standard for metrics in cloud-native systems. section 3.2.3 section 2.7
Services expose metrics through an HTTP endpoint, conventionally /metrics. A Prometheus agent or OpenTelemetry collector can scrape that endpoint and forward data to a metrics destination. section 1.4 section 4.2
Inspecting a service endpoint
A locally forwarded front-end service can expose output such as `# HELP process_cpu_user_seconds_total`, `# TYPE ... counter`, and a numeric metric value at `http://localhost:8888/metrics`. section 1.4
Use the format as part of a metrics workflow:
- Expose service or platform metrics in the format. section 1.4 section 3.2.3
- Scrape the endpoint with Prometheus or an OpenTelemetry collector, then store or federate metrics through systems such as Prometheus, Cortex, or Thanos. section 1.4 section 4.2
- Prune metrics that do not support alerts, dashboards, derived insights, or a clear operational use case. section 1.4 section 2.7
