gitlab-org--gitlab-foss/doc/development/usage_ping/metrics_dictionary.md

stage	group	info
Growth	Product Intelligence	To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments

Metrics Dictionary Guide

This guide describes Metrics Dictionary and how it's implemented

Metrics Definition and validation

We are using JSON Schema to validate the metrics definition.

This process is meant to ensure consistent and valid metrics defined for Usage Ping. All metrics must:

• Comply with the definied JSON schema.
• Have a unique full_path .
• Have an owner.

All metrics are stored in YAML files:

• config/metrics

Each metric is definied in a separate YAML file consisting of a number of fields:

Field	Required	Additional information
name	yes
description	yes
value_type	yes
status	yes
default_generation	yes	Default generation path of the metric. One full_path value. (1)
full_path	yes	Full path of the metric for one or multiple generations. Path of the metric in Usage Ping payload. (1)
group	yes	The group that owns the metric.
time_frame	yes	string; may be set to a value like "7d"
data_source	yes	string: may be set to a value like database or redis_hll.
distribution	yes	The distribution where the metric applies.
tier	yes	The tier where the metric applies.
product_category	no	The product category for the metric.
stage	no	The stage for the metric.
milestone	no	The milestone when the metric is introduced.
milestone_removed	no	The milestone when the metric is removed.
introduced_by_url	no	The URL to the Merge Request that introduced the metric.

1. The default generation path is the location of the metric in the Usage Ping payload. The full_path is the list locations for multiple Usage Ping generaations.

Example metric definition

The linked uuid YAML file includes an example metric definition, where the uuid metric is the GitLab instance unique identifier.

name: uuid
description: GitLab instance unique identifier
value_type: string
product_category: collection
stage: growth
status: data_available
default_generation: generation_1
full_path:
  generation_1: uuid
  generation_2: license.uuid
milestone: 9.1
introduced_by_url: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/1521
group: group::product intelligence
time_frame: none
data_source: database
distribution: [ee, ce]
tier: ['free', 'starter', 'premium', 'ultimate', 'bronze', 'silver', 'gold']