---
title: "Query metric data from Grafana Mimir | Grafana Mimir documentation"
description: "Learn how to query metric data from Grafana Mimir."
---

# Query metric data from Grafana Mimir

You can query data from Grafana Mimir via Grafana or the Grafana Mimir HTTP API.

The [Grafana Mimir HTTP API](/docs/mimir/latest/references/http-api/) is compatible with the [Prometheus HTTP API](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/api/).

To understand how you can query Prometheus data from within Mimir, refer to [Querying Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/), which introduces you to Prometheus Query Language (PromQL).

## Understand how range queries are cached

By default, Mimir [caches](/docs/mimir/latest/references/architecture/components/query-frontend/#caching) a [range query](/docs/mimir/latest/references/http-api/#range-query) only if the query is aligned. A query is aligned when both the `start` and `end` parameters are multiples of its `step`.

Mathematically, it looks as follows:

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

```none
start modulo step = 0
```

AND

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

```none
end modulo step = 0
```

Otherwise, a query is unaligned and it is not cached.

If you are querying from within Grafana, queries are aligned for you automatically. If you invoke the [Grafana Mimir HTTP API](/docs/mimir/latest/references/http-api/) directly, make sure that your [range queries](/docs/mimir/latest/references/http-api/#range-query) are aligned in order to benefit from caching.

> Caution
> 
> If you do want to cache unaligned queries, configure Mimir to enable caching on a per-tenant basis via the `cache_unaligned_requests` parameter. For more information, refer to [limits](/docs/mimir/next/configure/configuration-parameters/#limits).

- [Query best practices](/docs/mimir/latest/query/query-best-practices/)
- [Query metric labels](/docs/mimir/latest/query/query-metric-labels/)