cloudflare/pint

---
layout: default
parent: Checks
grand_parent: Documentation
---

# promql/range_query

This check inspects range query selectors on all queries.
It will warn if a query tries to request a time range that
is bigger than Prometheus retention limits.

By default Prometheus keeps [15 days of data](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/storage/#operational-aspects),
this can be customized by setting time or disk space limits.
There are two main ways of configuring retention limits in Prometheus:
* time based - Prometheus will keep last N days of metrics
* disk based - Prometheus will try to use up to N bytes of disk space.

Pint will ignore any disk space limits, since that doesn't tell us
what the effective time retention is.
But it will check the value of `--storage.tsdb.retention.time` flag passed
to Prometheus and it will warn if any selector tries to query more
data then Prometheus can store.

For example if Prometheus is running with `--storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d`
then it will store up to 30 days of historical metrics data.
If we would try to query `foo[40d]` then that query can only return up 
to 30 days of data, it will never return more.

This usually isn't really a problem but can indicate a mismatch between
expectations of data retention and reality, and so you might think that by
getting results of a `avg_over_time(foo[40d])` you are getting the average
value of `foo` in the last 40 days, but in reality you're only getting
an average value in the last 30 days, and you cannot get any more than that.

## Configuration

This check doesn't have any configuration options.

## How to enable it

This check is enabled by default for all configured Prometheus servers.

Example:

```js
prometheus "prod" {
  uri     = "https://prometheus-prod.example.com"
  timeout = "60s"
  include = [
    "rules/prod/.*",
    "rules/common/.*",
  ]
}

prometheus "dev" {
  uri     = "https://prometheus-dev.example.com"
  timeout = "30s"
  include = [
    "rules/dev/.*",
    "rules/common/.*",
  ]
}
```

## How to disable it

You can disable this check globally by adding this config block:

```js
checks {
  disabled = ["promql/range_query"]
}
```

You can also disable it for all rules inside given file by adding
a comment anywhere in that file. Example:

`# pint file/disable promql/range_query`

Or you can disable it per rule by adding a comment to it. Example:

`# pint disable promql/range_query`

If you want to disable only individual instances of this check
you can add a more specific comment.

`# pint disable promql/range_query($prometheus)`

Where `$prometheus` is the name of Prometheus server to disable.

Example:

`# pint disable promql/range_query(prod)`

## How to snooze it

You can disable this check until given time by adding a comment to it. Example:

`# pint snooze $TIMESTAMP promql/range_query`

Where `$TIMESTAMP` is either use [RFC3339](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3339)
formatted  or `YYYY-MM-DD`.
Adding this comment will disable `promql/range_query` *until* `$TIMESTAMP`, after that
check will be re-enabled.