---
title: "Meta monitoring for Cloud | Grafana Cloud documentation"
description: "Meta monitoring for Cloud"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Meta monitoring for Cloud

Meta monitoring is the process of monitoring your monitoring system (or alerting system).

Monitor your alerting implementation to understand its health, detect potential issues, and troubleshooting.

Grafana provides predefined [metrics](#explore-insights-metrics) and [logs](#explore-alerting-logs) to enable you to meta monitor Grafana Alerting. You can monitor this data in different ways, such as:

- \[Optional] Create a Grafana dashboard with a panel that uses these metrics, similar to [Alerting Insights](/docs/grafana-cloud/alerting-and-irm/alerting/monitor-status/view-insights/).
- \[Optional] Create an alert rule in Grafana that checks a metric regularly, just like any other alert rule.
- \[Optional] Use [Explore](/docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/explore/explore-inspector/) to query the metrics or logs.

## Before you begin

To explore your alerting metrics and logs, you must:

- Have **Admin** or **Editor** user permissions for the managed Grafana Cloud instance.
- Log in to your instance and click the [Explore](/docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/explore/) (compass) icon in the sidebar menu.

## Explore insights metrics

Alerting meta-monitoring metrics are stored in Prometheus data sources, which are part of your Grafana Cloud stack and are accessible from your Grafana instance.

> Note
> 
> A single Grafana Cloud account can run multiple [Grafana Cloud stacks](/docs/grafana-cloud/security-and-account-management/cloud-stacks/), all using the same `grafanacloud-usage` data source. When querying meta-monitoring metrics in the `grafanacloud-usage` data source, filter by your Grafana stack identifier (`id`).

### For Grafana-managed alerts

Available in the `grafanacloud-usage` Prometheus data source.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_group_rules`

The number of alert rules, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and alert rule state (`state`).

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

```query-example
sum by(state) (grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_group_rules{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"})
```

The `state` label can be `active` or `paused`.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_alerts`

The number of alert instances, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and alert instance state (`state`).

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

```query-example
sum by(state) (grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_alerts{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"})
```

The `state` label can be `alerting`, `error`, `nodata`, `normal`, or `pending`.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_evaluations_total:rate5m`

The per-second rate of alert rule evaluations over the last 5 minutes, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`).

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

```query-example
grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_evaluations_total:rate5m{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"}
```

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_evaluation_failures_total:rate5m`

The per-second rate of failed alert rule evaluations over the last 5 minutes, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`).

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

```query-example
grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_rule_evaluation_failures_total:rate5m{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"}
```

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_state_history_writes_failed_total:rate5m`

The number of failed writes to the alert state history backend over the last 5 minutes, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and backend type (`backend`). Use this metric to monitor the health of your alert state history configuration and detect issues with data source connectivity or authentication. Only `backend="prometheus"` failures are tracked in this metric, which correspond to failed writes of the `GRAFANA_ALERTS` metric.

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

```query-example
grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_state_history_writes_failed_total:rate5m{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>", backend="prometheus"}
```

### For Grafana Alertmanager

Available in the `grafanacloud-usage` Prometheus data source.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_alertmanager_alerts`

The number of alerts received by the Grafana Alertmanager for notification processing, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and alert notification state (`state`).

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

```query-example
sum by(state) (grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_alertmanager_alerts{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"})
```

The `state` label can be `active`, `suppressed`, or `unprocessed`.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_silences`

The number of silences, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and silence state (`state`).

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

```query-example
sum by(state) (grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_silences{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"})
```

The `state` label can be `active`, `expired`, or `pending`.

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_notifications_total:rate5m`

The per-second rate of alert notifications over the last 5 minutes, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and integration type (`integration`).

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

```query-example
grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_notifications_total:rate5m{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"}
```

#### `grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_notifications_failed_total:rate5m`

The per-second rate of failed alert notifications over the last 5 minutes, labeled by Grafana stack (`id`) and integration type (`integration`).

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

```query-example
grafanacloud_grafana_instance_alerting_notifications_failed_total:rate5m{id="<your_grafana_stack_id>"}
```

### For Mimir alerts

Meta-monitoring metrics for Mimir alert rules are stored in the `grafanacloud-usage` and `grafanacloud-<yourstackname>-prom` Prometheus data sources.

You can find these metrics in [Alerting insights](/docs/grafana-cloud/alerting-and-irm/alerting/monitor-status/view-insights/).

1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click **Alerts &amp; IRM** in the left-side menu.
2. Click **Alerting**.
3. On the Alerting landing page, view the **Insights** tab.
4. Select a panel from the **Mimir** sections.
5. Click the menu icon (three-dots).
6. Click **Explore** to view the metrics and the data source queried by the panel.

## Explore alerting logs

Alerting logs are stored in Loki data sources, which are part of your Grafana Cloud stack and are accessible from your Grafana instance.

### For Grafana-managed alert state changes

Logs related to state changes in Grafana-managed alerts are stored in the `grafanacloud-<yourstackname>-alert-state-history` Loki data source.

To explore these logs, complete the following steps.

1. In **Explore**, select the `grafanacloud-<yourstackname>-alert-state-history` Loki data source.
2. Use the Loki query editor to find logs.
   
   basic-query additional-filters failing-rules
   
   ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   basic-query ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```basic-query
   {from="state-history"} | json
   ```
   
   additional-filters ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```additional-filters
   {from="state-history"} | json | previous=~"Normal.*" | current=~"Alerting.*"
   ```
   
   failing-rules ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```failing-rules
   {from="state-history"} | json | current=~"Error.*"
   ```
3. Click **Run query**.
4. In the **Logs** section, review specific details about alerts by selecting relevant fields:
   
   - `previous`: previous alert instance state.
   - `current`: current alert instance state.
   - `ruleTitle`: alert rule title.
   - `ruleID` and `ruleUID`.
   - `labels_alertname`, `labels_new_label`, and `labels_grafana_folder`.
   - Additional available fields.

Alternatively, you can access the [History page](/docs/grafana-cloud/alerting-and-irm/alerting/monitor-status/view-alert-state-history/) in Grafana to visualize and filter state changes for individual alerts or all alerts.

### For Mimir alerts

Logs for Mimir-managed alerts are stored in the `grafanacloud-<yourstackname>-usage-insights` Loki data source.

These logs help you troubleshoot alerts by providing insight about their notification status. They display error messages for failing alerts.

To explore these logs, complete the following steps.

1. In **Explore**, select the `grafanacloud-<yourstackname>-usage-insights` Loki data source.
2. Use the Loki query editor to find logs. The following query retrieves all alert logs:
   
   ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```none
   {instance_type="alerts"} | logfmt
   ```
3. Click **Run query**.
4. In the **Logs** section, review specific details about alert logs by selecting relevant fields such as `msg`, `alert`, or `alerts`.