Caution
Grafana Alloy is the new name for our distribution of the OTel collector. Grafana Agent has been deprecated and is in Long-Term Support (LTS) through October 31, 2025. Grafana Agent will reach an End-of-Life (EOL) on November 1, 2025. Read more about why we recommend migrating to Grafana Alloy.
loki.write
loki.write receives log entries from other loki components and sends them
over the network using Loki’s logproto format.
Multiple loki.write components can be specified by giving them
different labels.
Usage
loki.write "LABEL" {
endpoint {
url = REMOTE_WRITE_URL
}
}Arguments
loki.write supports the following arguments:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
max_streams | int | Maximum number of active streams. | 0 (no limit) | no |
external_labels | map(string) | Labels to add to logs sent over the network. | no |
Blocks
The following blocks are supported inside the definition of
loki.write:
| Hierarchy | Block | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| endpoint | endpoint | Location to send logs to. | no |
| wal | wal | Write-ahead log configuration. | no |
| endpoint > basic_auth | basic_auth | Configure basic_auth for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
| endpoint > authorization | authorization | Configure generic authorization to the endpoint. | no |
| endpoint > oauth2 | oauth2 | Configure OAuth2 for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
| endpoint > oauth2 > tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
| endpoint > tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
| endpoint > queue_config | queue_config | When WAL is enabled, configures the queue client. | no |
The > symbol indicates deeper levels of nesting. For example, endpoint > basic_auth refers to a basic_auth block defined inside an
endpoint block.
endpoint block
The endpoint block describes a single location to send logs to. Multiple
endpoint blocks can be provided to send logs to multiple locations.
The following arguments are supported:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
url | string | Full URL to send logs to. | yes | |
name | string | Optional name to identify this endpoint with. | no | |
headers | map(string) | Extra headers to deliver with the request. | no | |
batch_wait | duration | Maximum amount of time to wait before sending a batch. | "1s" | no |
batch_size | string | Maximum batch size of logs to accumulate before sending. | "1MiB" | no |
remote_timeout | duration | Timeout for requests made to the URL. | "10s" | no |
tenant_id | string | The tenant ID used by default to push logs. | no | |
min_backoff_period | duration | Initial backoff time between retries. | "500ms" | no |
max_backoff_period | duration | Maximum backoff time between retries. | "5m" | no |
max_backoff_retries | int | Maximum number of retries. | 10 | no |
retry_on_http_429 | bool | Retry when an HTTP 429 status code is received. | true | no |
bearer_token_file | string | File containing a bearer token to authenticate with. | no | |
bearer_token | secret | Bearer token to authenticate with. | no | |
enable_http2 | bool | Whether HTTP2 is supported for requests. | true | no |
follow_redirects | bool | Whether redirects returned by the server should be followed. | true | no |
proxy_url | string | HTTP proxy to send requests through. | no | |
no_proxy | string | Comma-separated list of IP addresses, CIDR notations, and domain names to exclude from proxying. | no | |
proxy_from_environment | bool | Use the proxy URL indicated by environment variables. | false | no |
proxy_connect_header | map(list(secret)) | Specifies headers to send to proxies during CONNECT requests. | no |
At most, one of the following can be provided:
no_proxy can contain IPs, CIDR notations, and domain names. IP and domain
names can contain port numbers. proxy_url must be configured if no_proxy
is configured.
proxy_from_environment uses the environment variables HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY
and NO_PROXY (or the lowercase versions thereof). Requests use the proxy from
the environment variable matching their scheme, unless excluded by NO_PROXY.
proxy_url and no_proxy must not be configured if proxy_from_environment
is configured.
proxy_connect_header should only be configured if proxy_url or proxy_from_environment are configured.
If no tenant_id is provided, the component assumes that the Loki instance at
endpoint is running in single-tenant mode and no X-Scope-OrgID header is
sent.
When multiple endpoint blocks are provided, the loki.write component
creates a client for each. Received log entries are fanned-out to these clients
in succession. That means that if one client is bottlenecked, it may impact
the rest.
Endpoints can be named for easier identification in debug metrics by using the
name argument. If the name argument isn’t provided, a name is generated
based on a hash of the endpoint settings.
The retry_on_http_429 argument specifies whether HTTP 429 status code
responses should be treated as recoverable errors; other HTTP 4xx status code
responses are never considered recoverable errors. When retry_on_http_429 is
enabled, the retry mechanism will be governed by the backoff configuration specified through min_backoff_period, max_backoff_period and max_backoff_retries attributes.
basic_auth block
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
password_file | string | File containing the basic auth password. | no | |
password | secret | Basic auth password. | no | |
username | string | Basic auth username. | no |
password and password_file are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside a basic_auth block.
authorization block
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
credentials_file | string | File containing the secret value. | no | |
credentials | secret | Secret value. | no | |
type | string | Authorization type, for example, “Bearer”. | no |
credential and credentials_file are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside an authorization block.
oauth2 block
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
client_id | string | OAuth2 client ID. | no | |
client_secret_file | string | File containing the OAuth2 client secret. | no | |
client_secret | secret | OAuth2 client secret. | no | |
endpoint_params | map(string) | Optional parameters to append to the token URL. | no | |
proxy_url | string | HTTP proxy to send requests through. | no | |
no_proxy | string | Comma-separated list of IP addresses, CIDR notations, and domain names to exclude from proxying. | no | |
proxy_from_environment | bool | Use the proxy URL indicated by environment variables. | false | no |
proxy_connect_header | map(list(secret)) | Specifies headers to send to proxies during CONNECT requests. | no | |
scopes | list(string) | List of scopes to authenticate with. | no | |
token_url | string | URL to fetch the token from. | no |
client_secret and client_secret_file are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside an oauth2 block.
The oauth2 block may also contain a separate tls_config sub-block.
no_proxy can contain IPs, CIDR notations, and domain names. IP and domain
names can contain port numbers. proxy_url must be configured if no_proxy
is configured.
proxy_from_environment uses the environment variables HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY
and NO_PROXY (or the lowercase versions thereof). Requests use the proxy from
the environment variable matching their scheme, unless excluded by NO_PROXY.
proxy_url and no_proxy must not be configured if proxy_from_environment
is configured.
proxy_connect_header should only be configured if proxy_url or proxy_from_environment are configured.
tls_config block
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ca_pem | string | CA PEM-encoded text to validate the server with. | no | |
ca_file | string | CA certificate to validate the server with. | no | |
cert_pem | string | Certificate PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
cert_file | string | Certificate file for client authentication. | no | |
insecure_skip_verify | bool | Disables validation of the server certificate. | no | |
key_file | string | Key file for client authentication. | no | |
key_pem | secret | Key PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
min_version | string | Minimum acceptable TLS version. | no | |
server_name | string | ServerName extension to indicate the name of the server. | no |
The following pairs of arguments are mutually exclusive and can’t both be set simultaneously:
ca_pemandca_filecert_pemandcert_filekey_pemandkey_file
When configuring client authentication, both the client certificate (using
cert_pem or cert_file) and the client key (using key_pem or key_file)
must be provided.
When min_version is not provided, the minimum acceptable TLS version is
inherited from Go’s default minimum version, TLS 1.2. If min_version is
provided, it must be set to one of the following strings:
"TLS10"(TLS 1.0)"TLS11"(TLS 1.1)"TLS12"(TLS 1.2)"TLS13"(TLS 1.3)
queue_config block (experimental)
The optional queue_config block configures, when WAL is enabled (see Write-Ahead block), how the
underlying client queues batches of logs to be sent to Loki.
The following arguments are supported:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
capacity | string | Controls the size of the underlying send queue buffer. This setting should be considered a worst-case scenario of memory consumption, in which all enqueued batches are full. | 10MiB | no |
drain_timeout | duration | Configures the maximum time the client can take to drain the send queue upon shutdown. During that time, it will enqueue pending batches and drain the send queue sending each. | "1m" | no |
wal block (experimental)
The optional wal block configures the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) used in the Loki remote-write client. To enable the WAL,
you must include the wal block in your configuration. When the WAL is enabled, the log entries sent to the loki.write
component are first written to a WAL under the dir directory and then read into the remote-write client. This process
provides durability guarantees when an entry reaches this component. The client knows when to read from the WAL using the
following two mechanisms:
- The WAL-writer side of the
loki.writecomponent notifies the reader side that new data is available. - The WAL-reader side periodically checks if there is new data, increasing the wait time exponentially between
min_read_frequencyandmax_read_frequency.
The WAL is located inside a component-specific directory relative to the
storage path Grafana Agent Flow is configured to use. See the
agent run documentation for how to change the storage path.
The following arguments are supported:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
enabled | bool | Whether to enable the WAL. | false | no |
max_segment_age | duration | Maximum time a WAL segment should be allowed to live. Segments older than this setting will be eventually deleted. | "1h" | no |
min_read_frequency | duration | Minimum backoff time in the backup read mechanism. | "250ms" | no |
max_read_frequency | duration | Maximum backoff time in the backup read mechanism. | "1s" | no |
drain_timeout | duration | Maximum time the WAL drain procedure can take, before being forcefully stopped. | "30s" | no |
Exported fields
The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
receiver | LogsReceiver | A value that other components can use to send log entries to. |
Component health
loki.write is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid
configuration.
Debug information
loki.write does not expose any component-specific debug
information.
Debug metrics
loki_write_encoded_bytes_total(counter): Number of bytes encoded and ready to send.loki_write_sent_bytes_total(counter): Number of bytes sent.loki_write_dropped_bytes_total(counter): Number of bytes dropped because failed to be sent to the ingester after all retries.loki_write_sent_entries_total(counter): Number of log entries sent to the ingester.loki_write_dropped_entries_total(counter): Number of log entries dropped because they failed to be sent to the ingester after all retries.loki_write_request_duration_seconds(histogram): Duration of sent requests.loki_write_batch_retries_total(counter): Number of times batches have had to be retried.loki_write_stream_lag_seconds(gauge): Difference between current time and last batch timestamp for successful sends.
Examples
The following examples show you how to create loki.write components that send log entries to different destinations.
Send log entries to a local Loki instance
You can create a loki.write component that sends your log entries to a local Loki instance:
loki.write "local" {
endpoint {
url = "http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push"
}
}Send log entries to a managed service
You can create a loki.write component that sends your log entries to a managed service, for example, Grafana Cloud. The Loki username and Grafana Cloud API Key are injected in this example through environment variables.
loki.write "default" {
endpoint {
url = "https://logs-xxx.grafana.net/loki/api/v1/push"
basic_auth {
username = env("LOKI_USERNAME")
password = env("GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY")
}
}
}Technical details
loki.write uses snappy for compression.
Any labels that start with __ will be removed before sending to the endpoint.
Compatible components
loki.write has exports that can be consumed by the following components:
- Components that consume Loki
LogsReceiver
Note
Connecting some components may not be sensible or components may require further configuration to make the connection work correctly. Refer to the linked documentation for more details.



