Seshat

Seshat is a counters registry that maintains counter references with associated meta data about what each counter refers to. Makes it easy to export counters in a format suitable for external export to, e.g. prometheus.

Seshat is a foundation for the future metrics subsystem in RabbitMQ.

Project Maturity

Maturing.

Documentation

First create a new seshat group

A group in seshat is some logical partitioning of counters. E.g. you may have a group per erlang application, or some subcomponent of your system.

GroupRef = seshat:new_group(pets),

A group is essentially en ETS table where counters and their meta data will be stored. The GroupRef is an opaque type (but really it is an ets:tid(). The group can be any term() but it makes sense to just use atoms. Keep stuff tidy folks.

Now we're ready to register some counters.

-define(C_CARROTS_EATEN, 1).
-define(C_HOLES_DUG, 2).

Fields = [{carrots_eaten_total, ?C_CARROTS_EATEN, counter,
            "Total number of carrots eaten on a meal"},
          {holes_dug_total, ?C_HOLES_DUG, counter,
           "Total number of holes dug in an afternoon"}],
Name = rabbit,
CountersRef = seshat:new(pets, Name, Fields),

The CountersRef is a counters:counters_ref() type and can use used as usual with the counters module. The CountersRef can be stored in the state of a stateful erlang module or be retrieved using sesaht:fetch(Group, Name)

counters:add(CountersRef, ?C_CARROTS_EATEN, 3),

To inspect the counters on the system for a given group do:

Counters = seshat:counters(pets),

Counters is a map of #{Name => #{FieldName, Count}}. E.g. for the above it would look like:

#{rabbit => #{carrots_eaten_total => 3, holes_dug_total => 0}}

There is also seshat:format(Groups) which for the above case will return:

#{carrots_eaten_total =>
    #{help => "Total number of carrots eaten on a meal",
      type => counter,
      values => #{rabbit => 3}},
  holes_dug_total =>
    #{help => "Total number of holes dug in an afternoon",
      type => counter,
      values => #{rabbit => 0}}}

This format uses the counter Name as a unique value label for the metrics. This formatting is more suitable for e.g. prometheus export. The counter name doesn't have to be an atom. It can also be a list of two-tuples or a pre-formatted binary.

seshat:format/2 allows additional formatting options.

Copyright and License

(c) 2007-2025 Broadcom. All Rights Reserved. The term Broadcom refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Double licensed under the ASL2 and MPL2.0. See LICENSE for details.