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Observer’s agent supports several probe runtimes within one deployment. Pick the source that produces the most reliable signal for what you want to assert about the system.

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Source types

Every source type listed above is shipped and runs in the agent. A metric whose status is set through the public API rather than a probe uses a manual source. A heartbeat source watches a scheduled job that pings Observer; it is evaluated in the cloud and needs no agent (see Heartbeat monitoring). An alert source takes its status from inbound alerts and also needs no agent (see Inbound alerts). HTTP, TCP, DNS, TLS certificate and ICMP checks can also run as Hosted checks from Observer’s probe locations instead of your agent (see Hosted checks). (The mtls_http source type is deprecated: use the http source with its mTLS fields instead.)

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Configure a non-Prometheus metric

Open Metrics, then New metric, and pick the source type. Each source has its own configuration form:
  • HTTP: URL, expected status code(s), optional body match, optional headers, timeout, follow-redirects, verify-TLS toggle.
  • TCP: host, port, timeout.
  • DNS: domain, record type (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SRV, CAA, PTR), optional expected value, optional resolver.
  • TLS cert: host, port (default 443), warn-days, critical-days.
The thresholds remain consistent: each metric has healthy_* and unhealthy_* operators applied to whatever value the source returns.
Threshold examples by source
  • HTTP response_time_ms: healthy under 500, unhealthy over 2000.
  • TLS cert days_until_expiry: healthy over 30, unhealthy under 7.
  • DNS resolve_time_ms: healthy under 100, unhealthy over 500.

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Mixing sources on one page

A status page can carry metrics from any combination of sources. The page renders each metric using its threshold band, regardless of the runtime that produced the value. Operators viewing the page see one consistent green / amber / red signal across heterogeneous checks.

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Agent reach

The agent must be able to reach each source from its host. For Prometheus, that is your internal Prometheus URL. For HTTP probes, the URL must be reachable from wherever the agent runs (for example, an internal endpoint on a private network). For agent metrics the cloud never reaches your endpoints directly: the agent collects, computes status, and pushes the value with its verdict. Hosted checks are the exception: they probe public endpoints from Observer’s probe locations.