# Metric Summary

The Metric Summary page shows all metrics in your system with their cardinality, type, unit, and labels. It helps you spot high-cardinality metrics that might slow things down and understand what labels are available for building queries.

### What You'll Find Here

This page displays every metric groundcover collects, along with how many unique label combinations each one has. You can use it to:

* Quickly search for metrics by name
* Identify metrics with high cardinality that could impact performance
* See what labels are available for each metric
* Find the right metrics and labels when building dashboards and monitors

### Page Layout

#### Search Bar

Use the search field at the top to filter metrics by name. The search is case-insensitive and matches partial names.

Example searches:

* `groundcover_workload` finds all workload-related metrics
* `latency` finds all latency metrics
* `cpu` finds all CPU metrics

#### Cardinality Chart

This chart shows total cardinality across all your metrics over the selected time range. You can track trends over time and spot sudden spikes that might indicate a problem.

{% hint style="info" %}
The cardinality chart shows last 24 hours in 3 hour intervals
{% endhint %}

#### Metrics Table

The table shows details for each metric:

| Column      | Description                                                                                           |
| ----------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Metric Name | The full metric name, like `groundcover_workload_latency_seconds`                                     |
| Type        | Counter, Gauge, Summary, or Histogram                                                                 |
| Unit        | What the metric measures in (Seconds, Bytes, Number, etc.)                                            |
| Cardinality | Number of unique label combinations in the past 24 hours. Higher numbers mean more unique time series |
| Percentage  | What percentage of total cardinality this metric represents                                           |
| Description | What the metric measures                                                                              |
| Labels      | Preview of available labels (click a row to see all labels)                                           |

### Metric Details Drawer

Click any row to open a detailed drawer on the right. The drawer shows:

* The metric name at the top
* Navigation arrows to move between metrics
* A cardinality chart specific to this metric
* Two tabs with more information

#### Details Tab

Basic information about the metric:

| Field       | Description                            |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------- |
| Description | What the metric measures               |
| Unit        | Unit of measurement                    |
| Cardinality | Current unique label combination count |
| Type        | Counter, Gauge, Summary, or Histogram  |

#### Labels Tab

All labels available for this metric:

| Column         | Description                                    |
| -------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| Label          | The label name, like `namespace` or `pod_name` |
| Cardinality    | How many unique values this label has          |
| Values Preview | Up to 3 example values                         |

Use this information when building queries or identifying which labels contribute most to cardinality.

### How to Use This Page

#### Finding High-Cardinality Metrics

1. Go to Explore > Metric Summary
2. Click the Cardinality column header to sort
3. Metrics at the top have the most unique label combinations
4. Click on one to see which labels drive the cardinality in the Labels tab

#### Discovering Available Metrics

1. Type a keyword in the search bar (`http`, `database`, `cpu`, etc.)
2. Browse the filtered results
3. Click a metric to see its description and labels
4. Note the metric name and labels for your dashboards or monitors

#### Understanding Metric Structure

1. Click any metric in the table
2. Check the Details tab for basic information
3. Switch to the Labels tab to see all available dimensions
4. Use the Values Preview to see what values each label can have