---
title: "prometheus.exporter.gcp | Grafana Alloy documentation"
description: "Learn about prometheus.exporter.gcp"
---

# `prometheus.exporter.gcp`

The `prometheus.exporter.gcp` component embeds the [`stackdriver_exporter`](https://github.com/prometheus-community/stackdriver_exporter). You can use this component to collect [GCP Cloud Monitoring (formerly stackdriver)](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/docs) metrics, translate them to Prometheus-compatible format, and remote write. The component supports all metrics available through the [GCP monitoring API](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/metrics_gcp).

Metric names follow the template `stackdriver_<monitored_resource>_<metric_type_prefix>_<metric_type>`.

The following example shows a load balancing metric:

[](/media/docs/alloy/gcp-exporter-config-metric-example.png)

The metric has the following attributes:

- `monitored_resource` = `https_lb_rule`
- `metric_type_prefix` = `loadbalancing.googleapis.com/`
- `metric_type` = `https/backend_latencies`

These attributes result in a final metric name of `stackdriver_https_lb_rule_loadbalancing_googleapis_com_https_backend_latencies`

## Authentication

Alloy must be running in an environment with access to the GCP project it’s scraping. The exporter uses the Google Golang Client Library, which offers a variety of ways to [provide credentials](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/application-default-credentials). Choose the option that works best for you.

After deciding how Alloy obtains credentials, ensure the account is set up with the IAM role `roles/monitoring.viewer`. Since the exporter gathers all of its data from [GCP monitoring APIs](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/v3), this is the only permission needed.

## Usage

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

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.gcp "pubsub" {
        project_ids = [
                "<PROJECT_ID_1>",
                "<PROJECT_ID_2>",
        ]

        metrics_prefixes = [
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/snapshot",
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/num_undelivered_messages",
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/oldest_unacked_message_age",
        ]
}
```

## Arguments

You can use the following arguments with `prometheus.exporter.gcp`:

Expand table

| Name                      | Type           | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                           | Default | Required |
|---------------------------|----------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------|----------|
| `metrics_prefixes`        | `list(string)` | One or more values from the supported [GCP Metrics](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/metrics_gcp). These can be as targeted or loose as needed.                                                                                |         | yes      |
| `project_ids`             | `list(string)` | Configure the GCP Projects to scrape for metrics.                                                                                                                                                                                     |         | yes      |
| `drop_delegated_projects` | `bool`         | When enabled drops metrics from attached projects and only fetches metrics from the explicitly configured `project_ids`.                                                                                                              | `false` | no       |
| `extra_filters`           | `list(string)` | Used to refine the resources you would like to collect metrics from. Any string value within a filter string must be enclosed in escaped double-quotes. The structure for these filters is `<targeted_metric_prefix>:<filter_query>`. | `[]`    | no       |
| `gcp_client_timeout`      | `duration`     | Sets a timeout on the client used to make API calls to GCP. A single scrape can initiate numerous calls to GCP, so be mindful if you choose to override this value.                                                                   | `"15s"` | no       |
| `ingest_delay`            | `bool`         | When enabled, this automatically adjusts the time range used when querying for metrics backwards based on the metadata GCP has published for how long the data can take to be ingested.                                               | `false` | no       |
| `request_interval`        | `duration`     | The time range used when querying for metrics.                                                                                                                                                                                        | `"5m"`  | no       |
| `request_offset`          | `duration`     | When enabled this offsets the time range used when querying for metrics by a set amount.                                                                                                                                              | `"0s"`  | no       |

> Note
> 
> If you are supplying a list of strings for the `extra_filters` argument, any string values within a particular filter string must be enclosed in escaped double quotes. For example, `loadbalancing.googleapis.com:resource.labels.backend_target_name="sample-value"` must be encoded as `"loadbalancing.googleapis.com:resource.labels.backend_target_name=\"sample-value\""` in the Alloy configuration.

For `extra_filters`, the `targeted_metric_prefix` is used to ensure the filter is only applied to the metric\_prefix(es) where it makes sense. It doesn’t explicitly have to match a value from `metric_prefixes`, but the `targeted_metric_prefix` must be at least a prefix to one or more `metric_prefixes`. The `filter_query` is applied to a final metrics API query when querying for metric data. The final query sent to the metrics API already includes filters for project and metric type. Each applicable `filter_query` is appended to the query with an AND. You can read more about the metric API filter options in the [GCP documentation](https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/v3/filters).

For `request_interval`, most of the time the default works perfectly fine. Most documented metrics include a comments of the form `Sampled every X seconds. After sampling, data is not visible for up to Y seconds.` As long as your `request_interval` is &gt;= `Y` you should have no issues. Consider using `ingest_delay` if you would like this to be done programmatically or are gathering slower moving metrics.

For `ingest_delay`, you can find the values for this in documented metrics as `After sampling, data is not visible for up to Y seconds.` Since the GCP ingestion delay is an “at worst”, this is off by default to ensure data is gathered as soon as it’s available.

## Blocks

The `prometheus.exporter.gcp` component doesn’t support any blocks. You can configure this component with arguments.

## Exported fields

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

Expand table

| Name      | Type                | Description                                               |
|-----------|---------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------|
| `targets` | `list(map(string))` | The targets that can be used to collect exporter metrics. |

For example, the `targets` can either be passed to a `discovery.relabel` component to rewrite the targets’ label sets or to a `prometheus.scrape` component that collects the exposed metrics.

The exported targets use the configured [in-memory traffic](../../../../get-started/component_controller/#in-memory-traffic) address specified by the [run command](../../../cli/run/).

## Component health

`prometheus.exporter.gcp` is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid configuration. In those cases, exported fields retain their last healthy values.

## Debug information

`prometheus.exporter.gcp` doesn’t expose any component-specific debug information.

## Debug metrics

`prometheus.exporter.gcp` doesn’t expose any component-specific debug metrics.

## Examples

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

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.gcp "pubsub_full_config" {
        project_ids = [
                "foo",
                "bar",
        ]

        // Using pubsub metrics (https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/api/metrics_gcp/gcp-pubsub) as an example
        // all metrics.
        //   [
        //     "pubsub.googleapis.com/"
        //   ]
        // all snapshot specific metrics
        //   [
        //     "pubsub.googleapis.com/snapshot"
        //   ]
        // all snapshot specific metrics and a few subscription metrics
        metrics_prefixes = [
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/snapshot",
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/num_undelivered_messages",
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/oldest_unacked_message_age",
        ]

        // Given the above metrics_prefixes list, some examples of
        // targeted_metric_prefix option behavior with respect to the filter string
        // format <targeted_metric_prefix>:<filter_query> would be:
        //   pubsub.googleapis.com (apply to all defined prefixes)
        //   pubsub.googleapis.com/snapshot (apply to only snapshot metrics)
        //   pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription (apply to only subscription metrics)
        //   pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription/num_undelivered_messages (apply to only the specific subscription metric)
        extra_filters = [
                "pubsub.googleapis.com/subscription:resource.labels.subscription_id=monitoring.regex.full_match(\"my-subs-prefix.*\")",
        ]

        request_interval        = "5m"
        request_offset          = "0s"
        ingest_delay            = false
        drop_delegated_projects = false
        gcp_client_timeout      = "15s"
}
```

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

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.gcp "lb_with_filter" {
        project_ids = [
                "foo",
                "bar",
        ]
        metrics_prefixes = [
                "loadbalancing.googleapis.com",
        ]
        extra_filters = [
                "loadbalancing.googleapis.com:resource.labels.backend_target_name=\"sample-value\"",
        ]
}
```

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

```alloy
prometheus.exporter.gcp "lb_subset_with_filter" {
        project_ids = [
                "foo",
                "bar",
        ]
        metrics_prefixes = [
                "loadbalancing.googleapis.com/https/request_bytes_count",
                "loadbalancing.googleapis.com/https/total_latencies",
        ]
        extra_filters = [
                "loadbalancing.googleapis.com:resource.labels.backend_target_name=\"sample-value\"",
        ]
}
```

## Compatible components

`prometheus.exporter.gcp` has exports that can be consumed by the following components:

- Components that consume [Targets](../../../compatibility/#targets-consumers)

> Note
> 
> Connecting some components may not be sensible or components may require further configuration to make the connection work correctly. Refer to the linked documentation for more details.