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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.
Beta

module.file (deprecated)

Caution

Starting with release v0.40, module.string is deprecated and is replaced by import.string. module.string will be removed in a future release.

BETA: This is a beta component. Beta components are subject to breaking changes, and may be replaced with equivalent functionality that cover the same use case.

module.file is a module loader component. A module loader is a Grafana Agent Flow component which retrieves a module and runs the components defined inside of it.

module.file simplifies the configurations for modules loaded from a file by embedding a local.file component. This allows a single module loader to do the equivalence of using the more generic module.string paired with a local.file component.

Usage

river
module.file "LABEL" {
  filename = FILENAME

  arguments {
    MODULE_ARGUMENT_1 = VALUE_1
    MODULE_ARGUMENT_2 = VALUE_2
    ...
  }
}

Arguments

The following arguments are supported:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
filenamestringPath of the file on disk to watchyes
detectorstringWhich file change detector to use (fsnotify, poll)"fsnotify"no
poll_frequencydurationHow often to poll for file changes"1m"no
is_secretboolMarks the file as containing a secretfalseno

File change detectors

File change detectors detect when the file needs to be re-read from disk. local.file supports two detectors: fsnotify and poll.

fsnotify

The fsnotify detector subscribes to filesystem events, which indicate when the watched file is updated. This detector requires a filesystem that supports events at the operating system level. Network-based filesystems like NFS or FUSE won’t work.

The component re-reads the watched file when a filesystem event is received. This re-read happens for any filesystem event related to the file, including a permissions change.

fsnotify also polls for changes to the file with the configured poll_frequency as a fallback.

fsnotify stops receiving filesystem events if the watched file has been deleted, renamed, or moved. The subscription is re-established on the next poll once the watched file exists again.

poll

The poll file change detector causes the watched file to be re-read every poll_frequency, regardless of whether the file changed.

Blocks

The following blocks are supported inside the definition of module.file:

HierarchyBlockDescriptionRequired
argumentsargumentsArguments to pass to the module.no

arguments block

The arguments block specifies the list of values to pass to the loaded module.

The attributes provided in the arguments block are validated based on the argument blocks defined in the module source:

  • If a module source marks one of its arguments as required, it must be provided as an attribute in the arguments block of the module loader.

  • Attributes in the argument block of the module loader will be rejected if they are not defined in the module source.

Exported fields

The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:

NameTypeDescription
exportsmap(any)The exports of the Module loader.

exports exposes the export config block inside a module. It can be accessed from the parent config via module.file.LABEL.exports.EXPORT_LABEL.

Values in exports correspond to export blocks defined in the module source.

Component health

module.file is reported as healthy if the most recent load of the module was successful.

If the module is not loaded successfully, the current health displays as unhealthy and the health includes the error from loading the module.

Debug information

module.file does not expose any component-specific debug information.

Debug metrics

module.file does not expose any component-specific debug metrics.

Example

In this example, we pass credentials from a parent config to a module which loads a prometheus.remote_write component. The exports of the prometheus.remote_write component are exposed to parent config, allowing the parent config to pass metrics to it.

Parent:

river
module.file "metrics" {
  filename = "/path/to/prometheus_remote_write_module.river"

  arguments {
    username = env("PROMETHEUS_USERNAME")
    password = env("PROMETHEUS_PASSWORD")
  }
}

prometheus.exporter.unix "default" { }

prometheus.scrape "local_agent" {
  targets         = prometheus.exporter.unix.default.targets
  forward_to      = [module.file.metrics.exports.prometheus_remote_write.receiver]
  scrape_interval = "10s"
}

Module:

river
argument "username" { }

argument "password" { }

export "prometheus_remote_write" {
  value = prometheus.remote_write.grafana_cloud
}

prometheus.remote_write "grafana_cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = "https://prometheus-us-central1.grafana.net/api/prom/push"

    basic_auth {
      username = argument.username.value
      password = argument.password.value
    }
  }
}