# google/mtail

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4,015 stars · 390 forks · Go · Apache-2.0

## Links

- GitHub: https://github.com/google/mtail
- awesome-repositories: https://awesome-repositories.com/repository/google-mtail.md

## Topics

`bytecode` `calculator` `collector` `compiler` `extraction` `go` `instrumentation` `logs` `metrics` `monitoring` `mtail` `mtail-programs` `observability` `prometheus` `proxy` `timeseries` `vm`

## Description

mtail is a log-based metrics extractor and time-series monitoring agent. It functions as a log pattern parser that transforms unstructured log text into structured numerical monitoring data without requiring modifications to the original source code.

The tool operates as a push-based telemetry pipeline, aggregating extracted metrics in memory before transmitting them to remote monitoring endpoints and time-series databases.

Its capabilities cover log data telemetry, application performance monitoring, and custom log monitoring through a pipeline that moves parsed data from text logs to external monitoring tools.

## Tags

### Data & Databases

- [Log-to-Metric Translation](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/data-databases/log-aggregators/log-to-metric-translation.md) — Converts unstructured log event occurrences into numerical time-series metrics for monitoring. ([source](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/google/mtail@main/README.md))
- [In-Memory Aggregators](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/data-databases/real-time-data-aggregators/performance-metric-aggregators/time-series-metric-aggregators/in-memory-aggregators.md) — Aggregates counters and gauges in memory to reduce the frequency of external database writes.
- [Time-Series Database Exporters](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/data-databases/time-series-databases/time-series-database-exporters.md) — Flushes aggregated local metrics into remote time-series databases for long-term storage.

### Part of an Awesome List

- [Regex Pattern Matching](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/awesome-lists/devtools/regex-and-pattern-matching/regex-pattern-matching.md) — Uses regular expressions to identify and extract numerical values from unstructured log text.

### System Administration & Monitoring

- [Log-Based Monitoring Agents](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/log-based-monitoring-agents.md) — Operates as a background agent that transforms log files into telemetry for external monitoring.
- [Log File Tailing](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/log-file-tailing.md) — Continuously monitors the end of log files to process new entries in real time.
- [Log Parsers](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/log-parsers.md) — Extracts structured numerical data from raw log strings using custom patterns.
- [Push-Based Metric Pipelines](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/logging/metrics-retrieval/metric-detail-retrieval/agent-health-metrics/push-based-metric-pipelines.md) — Uses a push-based architecture to transmit aggregated telemetry data to central servers.
- [Log-Based Metric Extractors](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/logging/training-metrics/log-based-metric-extractors.md) — Parses text-based logs using regex to retrieve numerical performance data.
- [Non-Intrusive Log Extraction](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/non-intrusive-log-extraction.md) — Enables metric generation from logs without requiring any changes to the application code.
- [Application Performance Monitoring](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/application-performance-monitoring.md) — Tracks software behavior and error rates by extracting telemetry from logs.
- [Logging Pipelines](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/logging-pipelines.md) — Routes formatted monitoring data from log files to external monitoring services.
- [Metrics Exporters](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/metrics-exporters.md) — Provides a mechanism to expose generated metrics for analysis in external monitoring systems. ([source](http://google.github.io/mtail/))
- [Observability Metrics Exporters](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/prometheus-exporters/prometheus-based-metric-exporters/observability-metrics-exporters.md) — Exports extracted application performance and usage metrics to external monitoring tools. ([source](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/google/mtail@main/README.md))
- [Log Stream Monitors](https://awesome-repositories.com/f/system-administration-monitoring/real-time-monitoring/log-stream-monitors.md) — Tracks specific patterns within live log streams to generate custom health metrics.