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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.

Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Open source

Release notes for Grafana Agent flow mode

The release notes provide information about deprecations and breaking changes in Grafana Agent flow mode.

For a complete list of changes to Grafana Agent, with links to pull requests and related issues when available, refer to the Changelog.

Note

These release notes are specific to Grafana Agent flow mode. Other release notes for the different Grafana Agent variants are contained on separate pages:

v0.35

Breaking change: auth and version attributes from walk_params block of prometheus.exporter.snmp have been removed

The prometheus.exporter.snmp flow component wraps a new version of SNMP exporter which introduces a new configuration file format. This new format separates the walk and metric mappings from the connection and authentication settings. This allows for easier configuration of different auth params without having to duplicate the full walk and metric mapping.

Old configuration example:

river
prometheus.exporter.snmp "example" {
   config_file = "snmp_modules.yml"

    target "network_switch_1" {
        address     = "192.168.1.2"
        module      = "if_mib"
        walk_params = "public"
    }

    walk_param "public" {
        retries = "2"
        version = "2"
        auth {
            community = "public"
        }
    }
}

New configuration example:

river
prometheus.exporter.snmp "example" {
   config_file = "snmp_modules.yml"

    target "network_switch_1" {
        address     = "192.168.1.2"
        module      = "if_mib"
        walk_params = "public"
        auth        = "public_v2"
    }

    walk_param "public" {
        retries = "2"
    }
}

See Module and Auth Split Migration for more details.

Breaking change: discovery.file has been renamed to local.file_match

The discovery.file component has been renamed to local.file_match to make its purpose more clear: to find files on the local filesystem matching a pattern.

Renaming discovery.file to local.file_match also resolves a point of confusion where discovery.file was thought to implement Prometheus’ file service discovery.

Old configuration example:

river
discovery.kubernetes "k8s" {
  role = "pod"
}

discovery.relabel "k8s" {
  targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s.targets

  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_namespace", "__meta_kubernetes_pod_label_name"]
    target_label  = "job"
    separator     = "/"
  }

  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_pod_uid", "__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_name"]
    target_label  = "__path__"
    separator     = "/"
    replacement   = "/var/log/pods/*$1/*.log"
  }
}

discovery.file "pods" {
  path_targets = discovery.relabel.k8s.output
}

New configuration example:

river
discovery.kubernetes "k8s" {
  role = "pod"
}

discovery.relabel "k8s" {
  targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s.targets

  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_namespace", "__meta_kubernetes_pod_label_name"]
    target_label  = "job"
    separator     = "/"
  }

  rule {
    source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_pod_uid", "__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_name"]
    target_label  = "__path__"
    separator     = "/"
    replacement   = "/var/log/pods/*$1/*.log"
  }
}

local.file_match "pods" {
  path_targets = discovery.relabel.k8s.output
}

Breaking change: discovery_target_decode has been removed from the River standard library

The discovery_target_decode function was initially added to the River standard library as an equivalent to Prometheus’ file-based discovery and HTTP-based discovery methods.

However, the Prometheus discovery mechanisms have more functionality than discovery_target_decode:

  • Prometheus’ file_sd_configs can use many files based on pattern matching.
  • Prometheus’ http_sd_configs also support YAML files.

Additionally, it is no longer an accepted pattern to have component-specific functions to the River standard library.

As a result, discovery_target_decode has been removed in favor of using components.

Old configuration example:

river
remote.http "example" {
    url = URL_CONTAINING_TARGETS
}

prometehus.scrape "example" {
    targets    = discovery_target_decode(remote.http.example.content)
    forward_to = FORWARD_LIST
}

New configuration example:

river
discovery.http "example" {
    url = URL_CONTAINING_TARGETS
}

prometehus.scrape "example" {
    targets    = discovery.http.example.targets
    forward_to = FORWARD_LIST
}

Breaking change: The algorithm for the “hash” action of otelcol.processor.attributes has changed

The hash produced when using action = "hash" in the otelcol.processor.attributes flow component is now using the more secure SHA-256 algorithm. The change was made in PR #22831 of opentelemetry-collector-contrib.

Breaking change: otelcol.exporter.loki now includes instrumentation scope in its output

Additional instrumentation_scope information will be added to the OTLP log signal, like this:

{
    "body": "Example log",
    "traceid": "01020304000000000000000000000000",
    "spanid": "0506070800000000",
    "severity": "error",
    "attributes": {
        "attr1": "1",
        "attr2": "2"
    },
    "resources": {
        "host.name": "something"
    },
    "instrumentation_scope": {
        "name": "example-logger-name",
        "version": "v1"
    }
}

Breaking change: otelcol.extension.jaeger_remote_sampling removes the / HTTP endpoint

The / HTTP endpoint was the same as the /sampling endpoint. The /sampling endpoint is still functional. The change was made in PR #18070 of opentelemetry-collector-contrib.

Breaking change: The remote_sampling block has been removed from otelcol.receiver.jaeger

The remote_sampling block in otelcol.receiver.jaeger has been an undocumented no-op configuration for some time, and has now been removed. Customers are advised to use otelcol.extension.jaeger_remote_sampling instead.

Deprecation: otelcol.exporter.jaeger has been deprecated and will be removed in Agent v0.38.0.

This is because Jaeger supports OTLP directly and OpenTelemetry Collector is also removing its Jaeger receiver.

v0.34

Breaking change: phlare.scrape and phlare.write have been renamed to pyroscope.scrape and pyroscope.scrape

Old configuration example:

river
phlare.write "staging" {
  endpoint {
    url = "http://phlare:4100"
  }
}

phlare.scrape "default" {
  targets = [
    {"__address__" = "agent:12345", "app"="agent"},
  ]
  forward_to = [phlare.write.staging.receiver]
}

New configuration example:

river
pyroscope.write "staging" {
  endpoint {
    url = "http://pyroscope:4100"
  }
}

pyroscope.scrape "default" {
  targets = [
    {"__address__" = "agent:12345", "app"="agent"},
  ]
  forward_to = [pyroscope.write.staging.receiver]
}

v0.33

We’ve removed the deprecated symbolic links to /bin/agent* in Docker containers, as planned in v0.31. In case you’re setting a custom entrypoint, use the new binaries that are prefixed with /bin/grafana*.

v0.32

Breaking change: http_client_config Flow blocks merged with parent blocks

To reduce the amount of typing required to write Flow components, the arguments and subblocks found in http_client_config have been merged with their parent blocks:

  • discovery.docker > http_client_config is merged into the discovery.docker block.
  • discovery.kubernetes > http_client_config is merged into the discovery.kubernetes block.
  • loki.source.kubernetes > client > http_client_config is merged into the client block.
  • loki.source.podlogs > client > http_client_config is merged into the client block.
  • loki.write > endpoint > http_client_config is merged into the endpoint block.
  • mimir.rules.kubernetes > http_client_config is merged into the mimir.rules.kubernetes block.
  • otelcol.receiver.opencensus > grpc is merged into the otelcol.receiver.opencensus block.
  • otelcol.receiver.zipkin > http is merged into the otelcol.receiver.zipkin block.
  • phlare.scrape > http_client_config is merged into the phlare.scrape block.
  • phlare.write > endpoint > http_client_config is merged into the endpoint block.
  • prometheus.remote_write > endpoint > http_client_config is merged into the endpoint block.
  • prometheus.scrape > http_client_config is merged into the prometheus.scrape block.

Old configuration example:

river
prometheus.remote_write "example" {
  endpoint {
    url = URL

    http_client_config {
      basic_auth {
        username = BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME
        password = BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD
      }
    }
  }
}

New configuration example:

river
prometheus.remote_write "example" {
  endpoint {
    url = URL

    basic_auth {
      username = BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME
      password = BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD
    }
  }
}

Breaking change: loki.process stage blocks combined into new blocks

Previously, to add a stage to loki.process, two blocks were needed: a block called stage, then an inner block for the stage being written. Stage blocks are now a single block called stage.STAGENAME.

Old configuration example:

river
loki.process "example" {
  forward_to = RECEIVER_LIST

  stage {
    docker {}
  }

  stage {
    json {
      expressions = { output = "log", extra = "" }
    }
  }
}

New configuration example:

river
loki.process "example" {
  forward_to = RECEIVER_LIST

  stage.docker {}

  stage.json {
    expressions = { output = "log", extra = "" }
  }
}

Breaking change: client_options block renamed in remote.s3 component

To synchronize naming conventions between remote.s3 and remote.http, the client_options block has been renamed client.

Old configuration example:

river
remote.s3 "example" {
  path = S3_PATH

  client_options {
    key    = ACCESS_KEY
    secret = KEY_SECRET
  }
}

New configuration example:

river
remote.s3 "example" {
  path = S3_PATH

  client {
    key    = ACCESS_KEY
    secret = KEY_SECRET
  }
}

Breaking change: prometheus.integration.node_exporter component name changed

The prometheus.integration.node_exporter component has been renamed to prometheus.exporter.unix. unix was chosen as a name to approximate the *nix-like systems the exporter supports.

Old configuration example:

river
prometheus.integration.node_exporter { }

New configuration example:

river
prometheus.exporter.unix { }

Breaking change: support for EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_FLOW environment variable removed

As first announced in v0.30.0, support for using the EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_FLOW environment variable to enable Flow mode has been removed.

To enable Flow mode, set the AGENT_MODE environment variable to flow.

v0.31

Breaking change: binary names are now prefixed with grafana-

As first announced in v0.29, the agent release binary name is now prefixed with grafana-:

  • agent is now grafana-agent.

For the grafana/agent Docker container, the entrypoint is now /bin/grafana-agent. A symbolic link from /bin/agent to the new binary has been added.

Symbolic links will be removed in v0.33. Custom entrypoints must be updated prior to v0.33 to use the new binaries before the symbolic links get removed.

v0.30

Deprecation: EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_FLOW environment variable changed

As part of graduating Grafana Agent Flow to beta, the EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_FLOW environment variable is replaced by setting AGENT_MODE to flow.

Setting EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_FLOW to 1 or true is now deprecated and support for it will be removed for the v0.32 release.

v0.29

Deprecation: binary names will be prefixed with grafana- in v0.31.0

The binary name agent has been deprecated and will be renamed to grafana-agent in the v0.31.0 release.

As part of this change, the Docker containers for the v0.31.0 release will include symbolic links from the old binary names to the new binary names.

There is no action to take at this time.