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Labeling strategies to reduce cardinality LP - #452

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eve/labeling-strategy
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Labeling strategies to reduce cardinality LP#452
Eve832 wants to merge 19 commits into
mainfrom
eve/labeling-strategy

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@Eve832

@Eve832 Eve832 commented Jul 17, 2026

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Adds a new learning path teaching a deliberate labeling strategy to
control cardinality and cost for metrics and logs in Grafana Cloud.

Milestones

  1. business-value: why labeling strategy matters
  2. understand-cardinality: active series, log streams, and how label values
    multiply; includes 4 new SVG diagrams
  3. explore-your-cardinality (interactive): open the Cardinality tab in Cost
    Management and Billing and read the summary stats and both cardinality tables
  4. metrics-labeling-strategy: metric label best practices, anti-patterns, and
    prevention at the source with relabeling
  5. fix-metrics-cardinality (interactive): review Adaptive Metrics aggregation
    recommendations for existing cardinality
  6. logs-labeling-strategy: fewest labels principle, structured metadata, and
    the label/metadata/log-line decision framework
  7. correlate-dont-inflate: cross-signal pattern. keep metrics low cardinality,
    carry high cardinality detail on logs as structured metadata
  8. end-journey: recap and links to related paths

Notes for reviewers

  • All 8 packages pass Pathfinder CLI validation (validate --packages).
  • Interactive selectors were verified against a live stack (learn.grafana.net):
    the CMB Cardinality tab test id and the Adaptive Metrics nav links.
  • Product-behavior claims are cross-checked against published docs: 30-day
    cardinality retention, New/Unused badges, grafana-cmab-app.cardinality:read
    permission, 95th-percentile billing, 20-minute active-series window, and
    Adaptive Metrics compatibility guarantees.
  • The four SVGs in assets/images/ might need to be uploaded to the grafana.com
    media library I'm not sure yet
  • Adds me as the codeowner for /labeling-strategy-lj/

When many teams send telemetry and the bill payer can't control every
client, policy belongs at an admin-owned gateway collector tier managed
centrally with Fleet Management. Adds this guidance to the metrics
milestone and cross-references it from the logs milestone.
@Eve832 Eve832 added the deploy-preview Learning Hub website deploy preview (auto-added for *-lj PRs; add manually for other PRs) label Jul 17, 2026
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github-actions Bot commented Jul 20, 2026

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💻 Deploy preview available (Labeling strategies to reduce cardinality LJ):

@JStickler JStickler left a comment

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This looks really useful (and I know we need this course!).

Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/business-value/content.json
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/understand-cardinality/content.json Outdated
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/explore-your-cardinality/content.json
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/explore-your-cardinality/content.json Outdated
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/explore-your-cardinality/content.json Outdated
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/metrics-labeling-strategy/content.json Outdated
Comment thread labeling-strategy-lj/fix-metrics-cardinality/content.json Outdated
@Eve832
Eve832 marked this pull request as ready for review July 27, 2026 14:32
@Eve832 Eve832 changed the title Labeling strategies to reduce cardinality LJ Labeling strategies to reduce cardinality LP Jul 27, 2026

@tacole02 tacole02 left a comment

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Thanks for the PR. I smoke-tested the interactive milestones on learn.grafana.net shared in Block Editor, and those two steps worked.

This package is mostly conceptual content with only two Pathfinder-interactive milestones. That shape fits a Learning Hub journey, not an action-oriented Pathfinder path. Please keep the hands-on pieces as focused Pathfinder packages (along the lines of #484) and keep the broader labeling-strategy narrative in the website journey instead of merging this full path package.

I left a note on the path manifest. Please do not merge this PR in its current form.

"testEnvironment": {
"tier": "cloud"
},
"milestones": [

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Most of this path is conceptual prose (understand cardinality, metrics/logs strategy, correlate signals). Only two milestones are hands-on in Pathfinder. We want Pathfinder packages to stay action-oriented. The conceptual journey you built belongs on the Learning Hub website side (same split as in #484 with the explore/reduce packages). Please do not merge this as a full Pathfinder learning path.

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4 participants