---
title: "tools | Grafana Alloy documentation"
description: "Learn about the tools command"
---

# `tools`

The `tools` command contains command line tooling grouped by Alloy component.

> Caution
> 
> Utilities in this command have no backward compatibility guarantees and may change or be removed between releases.

## Subcommands

### prometheus.remote\_write sample-stats

shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```shell
alloy tools prometheus.remote_write sample-stats [<FLAG> ...] <WAL_DIRECTORY>
```

Replace the following:

- *`<FLAG>`* : One or more flags that define the input and output of the command.
- *`<WAL_DIRECTORY>`* : The WAL directory.

The `sample-stats` command reads the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) specified by *`<WAL_DIRECTORY>`* and collects information on metric samples within it.

For each metric discovered, `sample-stats` emits:

- The timestamp of the oldest sample received for that metric.
- The timestamp of the newest sample received for that metric.
- The total number of samples discovered for that metric.

By default, `sample-stats` returns information for every metric in the WAL. You can pass the `--selector` flag to filter the reported metrics to a smaller set.

The following flag is supported:

- `--selector`: A PromQL label selector to filter data by. (default `{}`)

### prometheus.remote\_write target-stats

shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```shell
alloy tools prometheus.remote_write target-stats --job JOB --instance INSTANCE WAL_DIRECTORY
```

The `target-stats` command reads the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) specified by `WAL_DIRECTORY` and collects metric cardinality information for a specific target.

For the target specified by the `--job` and `--instance` flags, unique metric names for that target are printed along with the number of series with that metric name.

The following flags are supported:

- `--job`: The `job` label of the target.
- `--instance`: The `instance` label of the target.

The `--job` and `--instance` labels are required.

### prometheus.remote\_write wal-stats

shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```shell
alloy tools prometheus.remote_write wal-stats <WAL_DIRECTORY>
```

Replace the following:

- *`<WAL_DIRECTORY>`* : The WAL directory.

The `wal-stats` command reads the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) specified by *`<WAL_DIRECTORY>`* and collects general information about it.

The following information is reported:

- The timestamp of the oldest sample in the WAL.
- The timestamp of the newest sample in the WAL.
- The total number of unique series defined in the WAL.
- The total number of samples in the WAL.
- The number of hash collisions detected, if any.
- The total number of invalid records in the WAL, if any.
- The most recent WAL checkpoint segment number.
- The oldest segment number in the WAL.
- The newest segment number in the WAL.

Additionally, `wal-stats` reports per-target information, where a target is defined as a unique combination of the `job` and `instance` label values. For each target, `wal-stats` reports the number of series and the number of metric samples associated with that target.

The `wal-stats` command doesn’t support any flags.