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.
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:
v0.37
Breaking change: Renamed non_indexed_labels
Loki processing stage to structured_metadata
.
If you use the Loki processing stage in your Agent configuration, you must rename the non_indexed_labels
pipeline stage definition to structured_metadata
.
Old configuration example:
stage.non_indexed_labels {
values = {"app" = ""}
}
New configuration example:
stage.structured_metadata {
values = {"app" = ""}
}
Breaking change: otelcol.exporter.prometheus
scope labels updated.
There are 2 changes to the way scope labels work for this component.
Previously, the
include_scope_info
argument would trigger includingotel_scope_name
andotel_scope_version
in metrics. This is now defaulted totrue
and controlled via theinclude_scope_labels
argument.A bugfix was made to rename
otel_scope_info
metric labels fromname
tootel_scope_name
andversion
tootel_scope_version
. This is now correct with the OTLP Instrumentation Scope specification.
Breaking change: prometheus.exporter.unix
now requires a label.
Previously the exporter was a singleton and did not require a label. The exporter now can be used multiple times and needs a label.
Old configuration example:
prometheus.exporter.unix { /* ... */ }
New configuration example:
prometheus.exporter.unix "example" { /* ... */ }
v0.36
Breaking change: The default value of retry_on_http_429
is changed to true
for the queue_config
in prometheus.remote_write
The default value of retry_on_http_429
is changed from false
to true
for the queue_config
block in prometheus.remote_write
so that the agent can retry sending and avoid data being lost for metric pipelines by default.
- If you set the
retry_on_http_429
explicitly - no action is required. - If you do not set
retry_on_http_429
explicitly and you do not want to retry on HTTP 429, make sure you set it tofalse
as you upgrade to this new version.
Breaking change: loki.source.file
no longer automatically extracts logs from compressed files
loki.source.file
component will no longer automatically detect and decompress
logs from compressed files (this was an undocumented behaviour).
This file-extension-based detection of compressed files has been replaced by a new configuration block that explicitly enables and specifies the compression format. By default, the decompression of files is entirely disabled.
How to migrate:
If your agent never reads logs from files with extensions
.gz
,.tar.gz
,.z
or.bz2
then no action is required.You can check what are the file extensions your agent reads from by looking at the
path
label onloki_source_file_file_bytes_total
metric.If your agent extracts data from compressed files, please add the following configuration block to your
loki.source.file
component:loki.source.file "example" { ... decompression { enabled = true format = "<compression format>" } }
where the
<compression format>
is the appropriate compression format - seeloki.source.file
documentation for details.
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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
Symbolic links in Docker containers removed
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 thediscovery.docker
block.discovery.kubernetes > http_client_config
is merged into thediscovery.kubernetes
block.loki.source.kubernetes > client > http_client_config
is merged into theclient
block.loki.source.podlogs > client > http_client_config
is merged into theclient
block.loki.write > endpoint > http_client_config
is merged into theendpoint
block.mimir.rules.kubernetes > http_client_config
is merged into themimir.rules.kubernetes
block.otelcol.receiver.opencensus > grpc
is merged into theotelcol.receiver.opencensus
block.otelcol.receiver.zipkin > http
is merged into theotelcol.receiver.zipkin
block.phlare.scrape > http_client_config
is merged into thephlare.scrape
block.phlare.write > endpoint > http_client_config
is merged into theendpoint
block.prometheus.remote_write > endpoint > http_client_config
is merged into theendpoint
block.prometheus.scrape > http_client_config
is merged into theprometheus.scrape
block.
Old configuration example:
prometheus.remote_write "example" {
endpoint {
url = URL
http_client_config {
basic_auth {
username = BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME
password = BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD
}
}
}
}
New configuration example:
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:
loki.process "example" {
forward_to = RECEIVER_LIST
stage {
docker {}
}
stage {
json {
expressions = { output = "log", extra = "" }
}
}
}
New configuration example:
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:
remote.s3 "example" {
path = S3_PATH
client_options {
key = ACCESS_KEY
secret = KEY_SECRET
}
}
New configuration example:
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:
prometheus.integration.node_exporter { }
New configuration example:
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 nowgrafana-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.