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.
remote.http
remote.http exposes the response body of a URL to other components. The URL
is polled for changes so that the most recent content is always available.
The most common use of remote.http is to load discovery targets from an HTTP
server.
Multiple remote.http components can be specified by giving them different
labels.
Usage
remote.http "LABEL" {
url = "URL_TO_POLL"
}Arguments
The following arguments are supported:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
url | string | URL to poll. | yes | |
method | string | Define HTTP method for the request | "GET" | no |
headers | map(string) | Custom headers for the request. | {} | no |
body | string | The request body. | "" | no |
poll_frequency | duration | Frequency to poll the URL. | "1m" | no |
poll_timeout | duration | Timeout when polling the URL. | "10s" | no |
is_secret | bool | Whether the response body should be treated as a secret. | false | no |
When remote.http performs a poll operation, an HTTP GET request is made
against the URL specified by the url argument. A poll is triggered by the
following:
- When the component first loads.
- Every time the component’s arguments get re-evaluated.
- At the frequency specified by the
poll_frequencyargument.
The poll is successful if the URL returns a 200 OK response code. All other
response codes are treated as errors and mark the component as unhealthy. After
a successful poll, the response body from the URL is exported.
Blocks
The following blocks are supported inside the definition of remote.http:
| Hierarchy | Block | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| client | client | HTTP client settings when connecting to the endpoint. | no |
| client > basic_auth | basic_auth | Configure basic_auth for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
| client > authorization | authorization | Configure generic authorization to the endpoint. | no |
| client > oauth2 | oauth2 | Configure OAuth2 for authenticating to the endpoint. | no |
| client > oauth2 > tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
| client > tls_config | tls_config | Configure TLS settings for connecting to the endpoint. | no |
The > symbol indicates deeper levels of nesting. For example, client > basic_auth refers to an basic_auth block defined inside a client block.
client block
The client block configures settings used to connect to the HTTP
server.
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 |
bearer_token, bearer_token_file, basic_auth, authorization, and oauth2 are mutually exclusive, and only one can be provided inside of a http_client_config 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.
basic_auth block
The basic_auth block configures basic authentication to use when polling the
configured URL.
| 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
The authorization block configures custom authorization to use when polling
the configured URL.
| 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
The oauth2 block configures OAuth2 authorization to use when polling the
configured URL.
| 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
The tls_config block configures TLS settings for connecting to HTTPS servers.
| 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)
Exported fields
The following field is exported and can be referenced by other components:
| Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
content | string or secret | The contents of the file. | no |
If the is_secret argument was true, content is a secret type.
Component health
Instances of remote.http report as healthy if the most recent HTTP GET
request of the specified URL succeeds.
Debug information
remote.http does not expose any component-specific debug information.
Debug metrics
remote.http does not expose any component-specific debug metrics.
Example
This example reads a JSON array of objects from an endpoint and uses them as a set of scrape targets:
remote.http "targets" {
url = env("MY_TARGETS_URL")
}
prometheus.scrape "default" {
targets = json_decode(remote.http.targets.content)
forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.default.receiver]
}
prometheus.remote_write "default" {
client {
url = env("PROMETHEUS_URL")
}
}


