Prometheus Textfile Collector — Batch Job Metrics (prom)
The file a cron job drops into the node_exporter textfile directory so a batch task can be monitored without a scrape endpoint: last-success timestamp, artefact size, duration and per-job exit codes, one of which is non-zero. The canonical shape for batch-job alerting.
# HELP node_backup_last_success_timestamp_seconds Unix time of the last successful backup.
# TYPE node_backup_last_success_timestamp_seconds gauge
node_backup_last_success_timestamp_seconds{job="nightly-dump"} 1773731672
# HELP node_backup_size_bytes Size of the most recent backup artefact.
# TYPE node_backup_size_bytes gauge
node_backup_size_bytes{job="nightly-dump"} 4183982080
# HELP node_backup_duration_seconds Wall-clock duration of the last backup run.
# TYPE node_backup_duration_seconds gauge
node_backup_duration_seconds{job="nightly-dump"} 412.7
# HELP node_cron_job_exit_code Exit code of the last cron run.
# TYPE node_cron_job_exit_code gauge
node_cron_job_exit_code{job="nightly-dump"} 0
node_cron_job_exit_code{job="log-rotate"} 0
node_cron_job_exit_code{job="cert-renew"} 1
Specifications
- Families
- 4
- Series
- 6
- Pattern
- node_exporter textfile collector
- Failed Job
- cert-renew
- Last Backup Age Seconds
- 7200
Testing contract
Expected to pass- Scenario
- Place the file in a textfile collector directory and evaluate a staleness alert against it.
- Expected result
- Six series are exposed, the two-hour-old backup timestamp drives a freshness rule, and node_cron_job_exit_code{job="cert-renew"} of 1 fires a job-failure alert.
What is a .prom file?
A .prom file holds metrics in the Prometheus text exposition format, the same body a `/metrics` endpoint returns. Each metric family is introduced by `# HELP` and `# TYPE` comments and followed by one sample per line: a metric name, an optional brace-delimited label set, a value, and an optional millisecond timestamp. Counters, gauges, histograms (with `_bucket`, `_sum`, `_count` series and a `+Inf` bucket), and summaries with quantile labels all use this one grammar.
How to use this file
Use an example .prom file to test exposition-format parsers, scrapers, and the node_exporter textfile collector — checking label escaping, histogram bucket ordering and cumulative counts, and the handling of `NaN` and `+Inf` values.
How to use this file for testing
“Prometheus Textfile Collector — Batch Job Metrics (prom)” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Observability, Time-series data, Config testing. Structured and plain-text telemetry with known timestamps, levels, request identifiers, and error states for testing log ingestion, correlation, dashboards, and alert pipelines.
Documented properties for this file: PROM · 793 bytes. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Telemetry fixtures use fixed trace IDs, span IDs, and timestamps so ingestion is reproducible run to run. Point your collector, parser, or query layer at the file and assert the documented span tree, metric families, or severity mix; service and host names are invented.
Related files
- csvMetric Range Export — Long (Tidy) CSV (csv)The same 90 samples as the query_range response, exported one row per observation with both epoch and ISO 8601 timestamps. The long layout every dataframe library prefers, and half of a reshaping pair.
- csvMetric Range Export — Wide (Pivoted) CSV (csv)The same 90 samples pivoted to one column per service and one row per timestamp — the layout a spreadsheet chart expects. Paired with the long-format export so a reshape can be scored in both directions.
- promOpenMetrics — Full Document with UNIT, info and stateset (prom)A complete OpenMetrics document — the _total and _created series a counter really has, UNIT metadata, an info metric carrying build metadata and a stateset with exactly one active state — terminated by the mandatory # EOF. This is what the exposition format became once it was standardised.
- promOpenMetrics — Histogram Exemplars Linking to the Trace Fixtures (prom)Histogram buckets carrying exemplars whose trace_id and span_id resolve against the OTLP trace fixtures in this category — the exact-to-example link that turns a latency spike on a graph into a specific request. Five exemplars, each with its own observed value and timestamp.
- jsonOTLP Metrics — Counter Reset on Process Restart (json)A monotonic counter that drops from 94,880 to 1,120 when its process restarts, with startTimeUnixNano changing at exactly that point to mark the reset. Rate calculations that subtract consecutive values without checking the start timestamp produce a large negative rate here.
- jsonOTLP Metrics — Cumulative Temporality (json)Cumulative sums whose start timestamp stays fixed across exports, so every point is the running total since process start. Paired with a delta-temporality twin covering the same window, because converting between the two is a stateful operation that a bridge must get right in both directions.
Generated by generation/observability.py. Free for any use, no attribution required — license.