Dashboard Source Format

Dashboard Source Format

Dash0's dashboards use Perses' PersesDashboard custom resource format. You don't have to understand or know the format to use Dash0's dashboards. We recommend using Dash0's user interface to build and export a dashboard. This way, you don't need to know about the intricacies of this data format. If you wish to know more, however, continue reading.

Understanding the Perses Dashboard CR Format

The Perses PersesDashboard CR format is closely aligned with Kubernetes' object format. This is why the structure may look familiar to Kubernetes users and somewhat verbose to others. Let's look at a simple dashboard with one panel to get an overview of the concepts.

The previously shown JSON creates this dashboard.

This dashboard leverages Dash0's synthetic span metrics to visualize the 75th percentile span duration per service. We configured it using Dash0's query builder, which generates PromQL queries. The underlying dashboard source is the following (as YAML for ease of reading):

dashboard.yml
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apiVersion: perses.dev/v1alpha1
kind: PersesDashboard
metadata:
  name: sample-dashboard
spec:
  duration: 24h
  display:
    name: Sample Dashboard
  layouts:
    - kind: Grid
      spec:
        items:
          - content:
              $ref: "#/spec/panels/d660469e-4b97-4dc1-b844-f7456fea0d93"
            height: 9
            width: 24
            x: 0
            "y": 0
  panels:
    d660469e-4b97-4dc1-b844-f7456fea0d93:
      kind: Panel
      spec:
        display:
          name: Spans by Service
        links: []
        plugin:
          kind: TimeSeriesChart
          spec:
            visual:
              areaOpacity: 0.55
              display: line
              palette:
                mode: auto
            yAxis:
              format:
                unit: milliseconds
              min: 0
        queries:
          - kind: TimeSeriesQuery
            spec:
              plugin:
                kind: PrometheusTimeSeriesQuery
                spec:
                  minStep: 5m
                  query: histogram_quantile(0.75, sum by (service_name) (rate({otel_metric_name = "dash0.spans.duration"}[$__interval]))) * 1000
                  seriesNameFormat: "{{service_name}}"

This dashboard leverages Dash0's synthetic span metrics to visualize the 75th percentile span duration per service. We configured it using Dash0's query builder, which generates PromQL queries. The underlying dashboard source is the following (as YAML for ease of reading):

Fundamentally, Perses' dashboard CR format has four core elements that are important to understand:

• Queries: Queries describe how to retrieve data for a panel. For example, the PromQL query and data sources used. In Dash0's case, you never need to select the data source.
• Panels: Panels are the elements you place on the dashboard, like charts, gauges, and markdown texts. Part of their configuration are queries and typically many visual options like the used formatters, thresholds, and axis configurations.
• Layouts: Layouts specify how large panels are and where they are located on the screen. They are based on a grid layout system, where each panel assumes a certain number of grid cells (up to 24 cells horizontally). Layouts are referencing panels through JSON references.
• Variables: Perses supports multiple variable types. Through variables, you can make your dashboard dynamic. For example, you could make the previous example optionally limit the chart's content to a specific subset of services. Variable usage is not shown in the example above.