--- title: "HCP Consul integration | Grafana Cloud documentation" description: "Learn about HCP Consul Grafana Cloud integration." --- > For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt). # HCP Consul integration for Grafana Cloud [Consul](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/intro) is a service mesh solution providing a full featured control plane with service discovery, configuration, and segmentation functionality. Consul is split into a [client-server architecture](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/architecture) by which servers provide a control plane into the cluster of clients, and clients form a mostly stateless data plane alongside the sidecar proxy on each node running your applications and services. HCP Consul specifically is a service provided by Hashicorp, by which they run and provide management software for your Consul cluster servers and related infrastructure. On your own infrastructure, you are required to only deploy and manage network peering, and the client and sidecar instances. Since [Consul provides first-class support for Envoy](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/connect/proxies/envoy) as a sidecar proxy, it is strongly recommended that you also install the [Grafana integration for Envoy](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/integrations/integration-reference/integration-envoy/), assuming that you are using it. This integration includes 3 useful alerts and 1 pre-built dashboard to help monitor and visualize HCP Consul metrics. ## Before you begin 1. In HCP Cloud, set up a Consul cluster. 2. Determine your usage scenario and potentially set up an [HCP Consul ACL token](https://developer.hashicorp.com/hcp/docs/consul/secure#access-control-lists-acls) accordingly. See [this tutorial from HCP](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/tutorials/security/access-control-setup-production#access-control-setup-production) for further details on how to set up ACLs for your Consul instance. - You can choose to use the `consul_exporter` configuration in the `integrations` Grafana Alloy configuration block, without an ACL token. This will give you access to metrics from Consul’s [Status API](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/api-docs/status), which is enough to populate all of the integration dashboard panels. - If you want the additional metrics provided, beyond what the integration dashboard supports, you can choose to additionally provide a `scrape_config` entry in the `metrics` Grafana Alloy configuration block that targets Consul’s Prometheus-compatible [Agent Telemetry API](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/agent/telemetry). This requires an ACL token with `agent:read` privileges to be specified in the `scrape_config` entry. - If you want the additional metrics provided, beyond what the integration dashboard supports, you can choose to additionally provide one or more `scrape_config` entries in the `metrics` Grafana Alloy configuration block that targets your own services running on HCP Consul. This step assumes that you are using Envoy as a sidecar proxy. This requires an ACL token with `node:read,service:read` privileges to be specified in the `scrape_configs` entry in order to use Consul SD to find nodes running your service via the [Catalog API](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/api-docs/catalog). 3. Install the correct Consul dataplane and connect it to HCP by following this [official guide](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/tutorials/cloud-deploy-automation/consul-end-to-end-overview). 4. Per [this Consul documentation](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/agent/config/config-files#telemetry-prometheus_retention_time), you will need to add the following telemetry snippet to your Consul agent config. This will enable a Prometheus-compatible metrics scraping endpoint on the Consul client. ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none "telemetry": { "prometheus_retention_time": "72h", "disable_hostname": true } ``` 5. If you want to expose Prometheus-compatible metrics for your services running on HCP Consul + Envoy, ensure the following snippets are present in each desired Consul service definition. See [this documentation](https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#envoy_prometheus_bind_addr) for more details. ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none service { ... tags = [ "" ] meta { prometheus_port = "" } ... connect { sidecar_service { proxy { config { envoy_prometheus_bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:" } } } } } ``` ## Install HCP Consul integration for Grafana Cloud 1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click **Connections** in the left-hand menu. 2. Find **HCP Consul** and click its tile to open the integration. 3. Review the prerequisites in the **Configuration Details** tab and set up Grafana Alloy to send HCP Consul metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance. 4. Click **Install** to add this integration’s pre-built dashboard and alerts to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your HCP Consul setup. ## Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy ### Simple mode These snippets are configured to scrape a single HCP Consul instance running locally with default ports. First, **manually** copy and append the following snippets into your alloy configuration file. ### Integrations snippets Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```alloy prometheus.exporter.consul "integrations_consul_exporter" { server = "localhost:8500" } discovery.relabel "integrations_consul_exporter" { targets = prometheus.exporter.consul.integrations_consul_exporter.targets rule { target_label = "instance" replacement = constants.hostname } rule { target_label = "job" replacement = "integrations/consul_exporter" } } prometheus.scrape "integrations_consul_exporter" { targets = discovery.relabel.integrations_consul_exporter.output forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver] job_name = "integrations/consul_exporter" } ``` ### Advanced mode The following snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process. To instruct Grafana Alloy to scrape your HCP Consul instances, **manually** copy and append the snippets to your alloy configuration file, then follow subsequent instructions. ### Advanced metrics snippets Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```alloy discovery.consul "metrics_integrations_hcp_consul_service__service_name_" { token = "" tags = [""] } discovery.relabel "metrics_integrations_hcp_consul_service__service_name_" { targets = discovery.consul.metrics_integrations_hcp_consul_service__service_name_.targets rule { target_label = "instance" replacement = constants.hostname } rule { target_label = "job" replacement = "integrations/hcp-consul" } rule { source_labels = ["__meta_consul_service_address"] target_label = "__address__" replacement = "${1}:" } } prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_hcp_consul" { targets = [{ __address__ = "localhost:8500", cluster = "", instance = constants.hostname, }] forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver] job_name = "integrations/hcp-consul" params = { format = ["prometheus"], } metrics_path = "/v1/agent/metrics" authorization { type = "Bearer" credentials = "" } } prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_hcp_consul_service__service_name_" { targets = discovery.relabel.metrics_integrations_hcp_consul_service__service_name_.output forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver] job_name = "hcp-consul-service-" } ``` To monitor your HCP Consul instance, you must use a [discovery.relabel](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/discovery.relabel/) component to discover your HCP Consul Prometheus endpoint and apply appropriate labels, followed by a [prometheus.scrape](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.scrape) component to scrape it. Configure the following properties within each `discovery.relabel` component: - `__address__`: The address to your HCP Consul Prometheus metrics endpoint. - `instance` label: `constants.hostname` sets the `instance` label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this HCP Consul instance. If you have multiple HCP Consul servers to scrape, configure one `discovery.relabel` for each and scrape them by including each under `targets` within the `prometheus.scrape` component. ### Advanced integrations snippets Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```alloy prometheus.exporter.consul "integrations_consul_exporter" { server = "localhost:8500" } discovery.relabel "integrations_consul_exporter" { targets = prometheus.exporter.consul.integrations_consul_exporter.targets rule { target_label = "instance" replacement = constants.hostname } rule { target_label = "job" replacement = "integrations/consul_exporter" } } prometheus.scrape "integrations_consul_exporter" { targets = discovery.relabel.integrations_consul_exporter.output forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver] job_name = "integrations/consul_exporter" } ``` This integrations uses the [prometheus.exporter.consul](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.exporter.consul/) component to generate metrics from a HCP Consul instance. For the full array of configuration options, refer to the [prometheus.exporter.consul](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.exporter.consul/) component reference documentation. This exporter must be linked with a [discovery.relabel](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/discovery.relabel/) component to apply the necessary relabelings. For each HCP Consul instance to be monitored you must create a pair of these components. Configure the following properties within each `discovery.relabel` component: - `instance` label: `constants.hostname` sets the `instance` label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this HCP Consul instance. You can then scrape them by including each `discovery.relabel` under `targets` within the [prometheus.scrape](/docs/alloy/latest/reference/components/prometheus.scrape/) component. ## Dashboards The HCP Consul integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your system. - Consul Overview ## Alerts The HCP Consul integration includes the following useful alerts: Expand table | Alert | Description | |--------------|---------------------------------------| | ConsulUp | Critical: Consul is not up. | | ConsulMaster | Critical: Consul has no master. | | ConsulPeers | Critical: Consul does not have peers. | ## Metrics The most important metrics provided by the HCP Consul integration, which are used on the pre-built dashboard and Prometheus alerts, are as follows: - consul\_raft\_leader - consul\_raft\_leader\_lastcontact\_count - consul\_raft\_peers - consul\_up - up ## Changelog md ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```md # 1.0.0 - December 2025 * Chore: Fix incorrect semver to 1.0.0. No further changes # 0.0.2 - September 2023 * New Filter Metrics option for configuring the Grafana Agent, which saves on metrics cost by dropping any metric not used by this integration. Beware that anything custom built using metrics that are not on the snippet will stop working. * New hostname relabel option, which applies the instance name you write on the text box to the Grafana Agent configuration snippets, making it easier and less error prone to configure this mandatory label. # 0.0.1 - March 2023 * Initial release ``` ## Cost By connecting your HCP Consul instance to Grafana Cloud, you might incur charges. To view information on the number of active series that your Grafana Cloud account uses for metrics included in each Cloud tier, see [Active series and dpm usage](/docs/grafana-cloud/fundamentals/active-series-and-dpm/) and [Cloud tier pricing](/products/cloud/pricing/).