Prometheus Cheat Sheet - How to Join Multiple Metrics (Vector Matching)
PromQL looks neat and powerful. And at first sight, simple. But when you start using it for real, you'll quickly notice that it's far from being trivial. Searching the Internet for query explanation rarely helps - most articles focus on pretty high-level overviews of the language's most basic capabilities. For example, when I needed to match multiple metrics using the common labels, I quickly found myself reading the code implementing binary operations on vectors. Without a solid understanding of the matching rules, I constantly stumbled upon various query execution errors, such as complaints about missing group_left or group_right modifier. Reading the code, feeding my local Prometheus playground with artificial metrics, running test queries, and validating assumptions, finally helped me understand how multiple metrics can be joined together. Below are my findings.
