Monitoring the health of StormForge

Monitor StormForge health with status metrics, logs, and component alerts

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Health and status metrics

StormForge components expose health and status metrics for monitoring StormForge. Health and status metrics differ from the workload metrics StormForge needs to create request and limit recommendations. See the Security FAQ for details on workload metrics.

StormForge installs from a single stormforge Helm chart and runs as separate components in your cluster. Each component deploys as its own Kubernetes Deployment:

  • stormforge-cluster-agent — the cluster telemetry agent that processes workloads and generates recommendations
  • stormforge-forwarder — forwards cluster metrics to StormForge
  • stormforge-applier — applies recommendations to workloads
stormforge-cluster-agent metrics Description
sf_workloads_failed_processed_total Total number of workloads for which recommendations failed to generate
sf_workloads_inactive_deletion_total Total number of inactive workloads deleted from StormForge
sf_workloads_inactive_failed_total Total number of inactive workloads that could not be deleted from StormForge
sf_workloads_processed_namespace Number of workloads processed per namespace
sf_workloads_processed_namespace_resource Number of workloads processed per namespace per resource
sf_workloads_processed_resource Number of workloads processed per resource
sf_workloads_processed_total Number of workloads processed
stormforge-applier metrics Description
sf_applier_api_disconnections_total Total number of times stormforge-applier lost connection to the StormForge API
sf_applier_patches_expired_total Total number of StormForge-generated patches expired
sf_applier_patches_failed_total Total number of StormForge-generated patches failed to apply
sf_applier_patches_processed_total Total number of StormForge-generated patches
sf_applier_patches_rolled_back_total Total number of StormForge-generated patches rolled back to the previous resource values

Beyond these StormForge metrics, stormforge-cluster-agent and stormforge-forwarder expose standard controller-runtime and Prometheus-agent metrics, such as workqueue_depth and the prometheus_* series. See Alerting on component health.

You can scrape these metrics in OpenMetrics format from the following component pods and endpoints:

Component Pod selector labels Port Endpoint
stormforge-cluster-agent app.kubernetes.io/name: stormforge and app.kubernetes.io/component: cluster-agent 8080 /metrics
stormforge-applier app.kubernetes.io/name: stormforge and app.kubernetes.io/component: applier 8080 /metrics
stormforge-forwarder app.kubernetes.io/name: stormforge and app.kubernetes.io/component: forwarder 9090 /metrics

Output and errors from each component are available in its pod logs. The Troubleshooting topic has steps for viewing the stormforge-cluster-agent logs and stormforge-applier logs, plus the warnings and errors to watch for.

Alerting on component health

For a baseline set of alerts, start with two metrics per component — one for each scope:

  • SaaS — visibility into the StormForge cloud connection
  • Local — visibility into in-cluster component behavior
Component Metric What it signals
stormforge-cluster-agent workqueue_depth{controller="workload"} Growth shows workload reconciliation is falling behind
stormforge-applier sf_applier_api_disconnections_total An increase shows a lost connection to the StormForge Platform
stormforge-applier sf_applier_patches_failed_total An increase shows recommendation patches are failing to apply
stormforge-forwarder prometheus_remote_storage_samples_pending Growth shows metrics are not being forwarded to the StormForge Platform
stormforge-forwarder prometheus_agent_samples_appended_total Steady growth shows targets are being scraped successfully

For a webhook notification each time the Applier applies a recommendation, see Configure applier alerts.

Last modified July 24, 2026