Create a Grafana Mimir or Loki managed recording rule

You can create and manage recording rules for an external Grafana Mimir or Loki instance. Recording rules calculate frequently needed expressions or computationally expensive expressions in advance and save the result as a new set of time series. Querying this new time series is faster, especially for dashboards since they query the same expression every time the dashboards refresh.

Before you begin

  • Verify that you have write permission to the Prometheus or Loki data source. Otherwise, you will not be able to create or update Grafana Mimir managed alerting rules.

  • For Grafana Mimir and Loki data sources, enable the ruler API by configuring their respective services.

    • Loki - The local rule storage type, default for the Loki data source, supports only viewing of rules. To edit rules, configure one of the other rule storage types.

    • Grafana Mimir - use the /prometheus prefix. The Prometheus data source supports both Grafana Mimir and Prometheus, and Grafana expects that both the Query API and Ruler API are under the same URL. You cannot provide a separate URL for the Ruler API.

Note: If you do not want to manage alerting rules for a particular Loki or Prometheus data source, go to its settings and clear the Manage alerts via Alerting UI checkbox.

Add a Grafana Mimir or Loki managed recording rule

To create a Grafana Mimir or Loki managed recording rule

  1. In the Grafana menu, click the Alerting (bell) icon to open the Alerting page listing existing alerts.

  2. Click New alert rule. The new alerting rule page opens where the Grafana managed alert option is selected by default.

  3. In Step 1, select Mimir or Loki recording rule option.

    • Select your Loki or Prometheus data source, add the query to evaluate, and then select the alert condition.
    • Enter a PromQL or LogQL expression. The rule fires if the evaluation result has at least one series with a value that is greater than 0. An alert is created for each series.

  4. In Step 2, add the rule name, namespace, rule group, as well as additional metadata associated with the rule.

    • In Rule name, add a descriptive name. This name is displayed in the alert rule list. It is also the alertname label for every alert instance that is created from this rule.
    • From the Namespace drop-down, select an existing rule namespace. Otherwise, click Add new and enter a name to create a new one. Namespaces can contain one or more rule groups and only have an organizational purpose. For more information, see Grafana Mimir or Loki rule groups and namespaces.
    • From the Group drop-down, select an existing group within the selected namespace. Otherwise, click Add new and enter a name to create a new one. Newly created rules are appended to the end of the group. Rules within a group are run sequentially at a regular interval, with the same evaluation time.
    • Add a description and summary to customize alert messages. Use the guidelines in Annotations and labels for alerting.
    • Add Runbook URL, panel, dashboard, and alert IDs.
    • Add custom labels.

  5. Click Save to save the rule or Save and exit to save the rule and go back to the Alerting page.

  6. Next, create a notification for the rule.

  7. In the Grafana menu, click the Alerting (bell) icon to open the Alerting page listing existing alerts.

  8. Click New alert rule.

  9. In Step 1, add the rule name, type, and storage location.

    • In Rule name, add a descriptive name. This name is displayed in the alert rule list. It is also the alertname label for every alert instance that is created from this rule.
    • From the Rule type drop-down, select Mimir / Loki managed alert.
    • From the Select data source drop-down, select an external Prometheus, an external Loki, or a Grafana Cloud data source.
    • From the Namespace drop-down, select an existing rule namespace. Otherwise, click Add new and enter a name to create a new one. Namespaces can contain one or more rule groups and only have an organizational purpose.

    • From the Group drop-down, select an existing group within the selected namespace. Otherwise, click Add new and enter a name to create a new one. Newly created rules are appended to the end of the group. Rules within a group are run sequentially at a regular interval, with the same evaluation time.

      [Alert details

      Alert details

      ](https://grafana.com/static/img/docs/alerting/unified/rule-edit-mimir-alert-type-8-0.png)

  10. In Step 2, add the query to evaluate.

  11. In Step 3, add additional metadata associated with the rule.

    • Add a description and summary to customize alert messages. Use the guidelines in Annotations and labels for alerting.
    • Add Runbook URL, panel, dashboard, and alert IDs.
    • Add custom labels.
  12. Click Save to save the rule or Save and exit to save the rule and go back to the Alerting page.