/api/annotation

These endpoints provides a means of adding, editing or deleting annotations stored in the OpenTSDB backend. Annotations are very basic objects used to record a note of an arbitrary event at some point, optionally associated with a timeseries. Annotations are not meant to be used as a tracking or event based system, rather they are useful for providing links to such systems by displaying a notice on graphs or via API query calls.

When creating, modifying or deleting annotations, all changes will be propagated to the search plugin if configured.

Annotation API Endpoints

The default /annotation endpoint deals with one notation at a time. The /annotation/bulk endpoint allows for adding or updating multiple annotations at a time.

Verbs

  • GET - Retrieve a single annotation
  • POST - Create or modify an annotation
  • PUT - Create or replace an annotation
  • DELETE - Delete an annotation

Requests

All annotations are identified by the startTime field and optionally the tsuid field. Each note can be global, meaning it is associated with all timeseries, or it can be local, meaning it's associated with a specific tsuid. If the tsuid is not supplied or has an empty value, the annotation is considered to be a global note.

Name Data Type Required Description Default QS RW Example
startTime Integer Required A Unix epoch timestamp, in seconds, marking the time when the annotation event should be recorded   start_time RW 1369141261
endTime Integer Optional An optional end time for the event if it has completed or been resolved 0 end_time RW 1369141262
tsuid String Optional A TSUID if the annotation is associated with a timeseries. This may be null or empty if the note was for a global event   tsuid RW 000001000001000001
description String Optional A brief description of the event. As this may appear on GnuPlot graphs, the description should be very short, ideally less than 25 characters.   description RW Network Outage
notes String Optional Detailed notes about the event   notes RW Switch #5 died and was replaced
custom Map Optional A key/value map to store custom fields and values null   RW See Below

Note

Custom fields cannot be passed via query string. You must use the POST or PUT verbs.

Warning

If your request uses PUT, any fields that you do not supply with the request will be overwritten with their default values. For example, the description field will be set to an empty string and the custom field will be reset to null.

Example GET Request

http://localhost:4242/api/annotation?start_time=1369141261&tsuid=000001000001000001

Example POST Request

{
  "startTime":"1369141261",
  "tsuid":"000001000001000001",
  "description": "Testing Annotations",
  "notes": "These would be details about the event, the description is just a summary",
  "custom": {
      "owner": "jdoe",
      "dept": "ops"
  }
}

Response

A successful response to a GET, POST or PUT request will return the full object with the requested changes. Successful DELETE calls will return with a 204 status code and no body content. When modifying data, if no changes were present, i.e. the call did not provide any data to store, the response will be a 304 without any body content. If the requested annotation did not exist in the system, a 404 will be returned with an error message. If invalid data was supplied a 400 error will be returned.

Example Response

{
    "tsuid": "000001000001000001",
    "description": "Testing Annotations",
    "notes": "These would be details about the event, the description is just a summary",
    "custom": {
        "owner": "jdoe",
        "dept": "ops"
    },
    "endTime": 0,
    "startTime": 1369141261
}