Features

Prometheus includes various experimental and production features that can be enabled via environment variables.

Enabling Features

All feature flags are boolean (true/false):

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_NATIVE_HISTOGRAM: "true"
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_EXEMPLAR_STORAGE: "true"
  # ... other features

Native Histogram

Native histograms provide higher fidelity for histogram metrics:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_NATIVE_HISTOGRAM: "true"

This enables the /api/v2/format endpoint and native histogram support in the scrape configuration.

Exemplar Storage

Store traces alongside metrics for correlation:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_EXEMPLAR_STORAGE: "true"

Exemplars can be attached to histogram metrics using the trace_id label.

Memory Snapshot on Shutdown

Save in-memory WAL to disk on container shutdown:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_MEMORY_SNAPSHOT_ON_SHUTDOWN: "true"

This helps preserve data that hasn't been compacted yet.

Web Lifecycle

Enable configuration reload and shutdown endpoints:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_WEB_LIFECYCLE: "true"

This enables:

• POST /-/reload - Reload configuration
• GET /-/quit - Shutdown gracefully

Remote Write Receiver

Receive metrics from remote Prometheus instances:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_WEB_REMOTE_WRITE_RECEIVER: "true"

OTLP Receiver

Receive OpenTelemetry metrics:

environment:
  PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_WEB_OTLP_RECEIVER: "true"

Additional Experimental Features

Variable	Feature	Description
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_EXTRA_SCRAPE_METRICS	Extra scrape metrics	Include additional scrape timing metrics
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_PER_STEP_STATS	Per-step stats	Enable per-step statistics in PromQL
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_PROMQL_FUNCTIONS	Experimental PromQL functions	Enable experimental functions
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_CREATED_TIMESTAMPS_ZERO_INJECTION	Zero injection for created timestamps	Inject zero for missing created timestamps
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_CONCURRENT_RULE_EVAL	Concurrent rule evaluation	Evaluate rules concurrently
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_OLD_UI	Old UI	Enable the classic Prometheus UI
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_METADATA_WAL_RECORDS	Metadata WAL records	Store metadata in WAL
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_DELAYED_COMPACTION	Delayed compaction	Delay compaction operations
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_PROMQL_DELAYED_NAME_REMOVAL	Delayed name removal	Delay metric name removal in PromQL
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_AUTO_RELOAD_CONFIG	Auto reload config	Automatically reload config on changes
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_OLTP_DELTA_CONVERSION	OTLP delta conversion	Convert OTLP metrics with delta temporality
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_PROMQL_DURATION_EXPR	Duration expressions	Enable duration expressions in PromQL
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_OLTP_NATIVE_DELTA	OTLP native delta	Native delta ingestion for OTLP
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_TYPE_AND_UNIT_LABELS	Type and unit labels	Add type and unit labels to metrics
PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_USE_UNCACHED_IO	Uncached I/O	Use uncached I/O for storage

Recommended Production Configuration

services:
  prometheus:
    image: ghcr.io/supanadit/containers/prometheus:3.8.1-r2
    container_name: prometheus
    environment:
      PROMETHEUS_PORT: 9090
      PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_NATIVE_HISTOGRAM: "true"
      PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_EXEMPLAR_STORAGE: "true"
      PROMETHEUS_ENABLE_WEB_LIFECYCLE: "true"
      PROMETHEUS_STORAGE_TSDB_RETENTION_TIME: "30d"
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - prometheus_data:/opt/prometheus/data
      - ./config/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml