Default Metrics Reference - Tyk Documentation

Availability

Component	Version	Edition
Tyk Gateway	Available since v5.13.0	Community & Enterprise
Tyk Dashboard	Available since v5.16.0	Enterprise
Tyk MDCB	Available since v2.14.0	Enterprise
Tyk Developer Portal	Available since v1.20.0	Enterprise

Tyk Gateway Metrics

When opentelemetry.metrics.enabled is set to true, Tyk Gateway automatically exports four groups of metrics:

Request metrics: Rate, Errors, and Duration (RED) for every API request
Go runtime metrics: Memory, goroutines, and GC health
Configuration state metrics: API/policy load counts and reload events
Token exchange metrics: Volume, latency, and cache hit-rate for token exchange (Enterprise only)

All metrics are exported as OpenTelemetry-semantic-convention-compliant instruments and include resource attributes that identify the gateway instance.

Request Metrics

These four instruments cover the standard RED signals for every API proxied by the gateway.

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`http.server.request.duration`	Histogram	seconds	End-to-end request latency (client to gateway to upstream and back).
`tyk.gateway.request.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time spent inside the gateway only (middleware processing, routing). Excludes upstream response time.
`tyk.upstream.request.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time spent waiting for the upstream service to respond.
`tyk.api.requests.total`	Counter	requests	Total number of requests processed.

For how to use the three latency histograms together, see Request Metrics. The histograms can also carry exemplars that link a data point to a trace. See Exemplars.

Default Dimensions

Default dimensions vary by instrument:

Instrument	`http.request.method`	`http.response.status_code`	`tyk.api.id`	`tyk.response_flag`
`http.server.request.duration`	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
`tyk.gateway.request.duration`	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
`tyk.upstream.request.duration`	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
`tyk.api.requests.total`	Yes	Yes	Yes	-

Dimension	Description
`http.request.method`	HTTP request method (`GET`, `POST`, etc.).
`tyk.api.id`	The Tyk API ID.
`http.response.status_code`	HTTP response status code (`200`, `404`, `500`, etc.).
`tyk.response_flag`	Tyk 3-letter error classification code (for example `AKI`, `URS`, `CBO`), or the HTTP status code string (for example `"200"`) for successful requests or when error classification is absent. See the full list of response flags.

You can add more dimensions to any instrument using custom metrics.

Go Runtime Metrics

Tyk Gateway, Tyk Dashboard, and Tyk MDCB export the same set of Go runtime metrics. For what these mean and how to read them, see Go Runtime Metrics in the concepts page.

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`go.memory.used`	Gauge	bytes	Current heap memory in use.
`go.memory.limit`	Gauge	bytes	Soft memory limit set via `GOMEMLIMIT`.
`go.memory.allocated`	Gauge	bytes	Total bytes allocated to the heap.
`go.memory.allocations`	Counter	bytes	Cumulative bytes allocated since startup.
`go.memory.gc.goal`	Gauge	bytes	Target heap size for the next GC cycle.
`go.goroutine.count`	Gauge	goroutines	Number of active goroutines. Useful for detecting goroutine leaks.
`go.processor.limit`	Gauge	threads	Number of OS threads available (`GOMAXPROCS`).
`go.config.gogc`	Gauge	percent	GC target percentage (`GOGC` env var).

Configuration State Metrics

These metrics reflect the operational state of the gateway’s loaded configuration. For how to use them, see Configuration State Metrics.

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.gateway.apis.loaded`	Gauge	APIs	Number of API definitions currently loaded and active.
`tyk.gateway.policies.loaded`	Gauge	policies	Number of policies currently loaded and active.
`tyk.gateway.config.reload.total`	Counter	reloads	Cumulative number of configuration reload events since startup.
`tyk.gateway.config.reload.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time taken to complete each configuration reload cycle.

Token Exchange Metrics

Token exchange is an Enterprise-only feature, available from Tyk 5.15.0. These metrics are only emitted on APIs with oauth2.tokenExchange configured.

These metrics cover every token exchange decision the gateway makes when exchanging an inbound token for a downstream token (RFC 8693).

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.requests`	Counter	exchanges	Total token exchange decisions, labeled by outcome and provider. Recorded on every attempt, including cache hits.
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time to obtain the exchanged token: the IdP round-trip on a cache miss, or the cache lookup on a hit. Recorded on every attempt, so cache hits land in the lowest buckets while live IdP calls dominate the upper ones.
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.cache_hit`	Counter	hits	Number of exchange requests served from the token exchange cache. A separate signal, not a distinct outcome: a warm-cache exchange still increments `tyk.oauth2.exchange.requests` with `outcome="ok"`.

Dimensions

All three metrics carry the following dimensions:

Instrument	outcome	provider
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.requests`	Yes	Yes
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.duration`	Yes	Yes
`tyk.oauth2.exchange.cache_hit`	-	Yes

Dimension	Description
`outcome`	One of `ok`, `idp_error`, `misconfig`, `no_matching_provider`, or `step_up_required` (jwt-bearer grant only).
`provider`	The operator-defined `name` of the token exchange provider (`oauth2.tokenExchange.providers[].name`). A handful of values per API, so safe as a label.

Identity, audience, and requested scopes are never metric labels or dimensions. They’re only available in structured logs and audit events. See Token exchange observability.

Resource Attributes

Every metric exported from a gateway instance carries resource attributes, metadata that identifies the source. These are set once at startup and attached to all metrics.

Tyk-Specific Resource Attributes

Attribute	Always Present	Example	Description
`tyk.gw.id`	Yes	`gw-prod-eu-west-1-a`	Unique gateway ID.
`tyk.gw.dataplane`	Yes	`true`	Whether the gateway is running in a distributed Data Plane
`tyk.gw.group.id`	No	`prod-eu-west-1`	Present only for Data Plane gateways, identifies the group.
`tyk.gw.tags`	No	`["region:eu", "env:prod"]`	Present only when the gateway has segment tags configured.

Standard OTel Resource Attributes

Category	Attributes
Service	`service.name`, `service.version`, `service.instance.id`
Host	`host.name`, `host.arch`, `host.ip`
Process	`process.pid`

To use resource attributes as labels in Prometheus, see Resource Attributes in Prometheus. Tyk Dashboard and Tyk MDCB also carry control_plane_id. See Control Plane Identity.

Tyk Dashboard Metrics

The Tyk Dashboard example dashboard shows its datastore connections, connected gateways, license usage, and pool saturation.

Tyk Dashboard example dashboard in Grafana showing datastore and Redis connection status, connected gateways, late heartbeats, license seats used, license expiry, and connection pool saturation

Uptime

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`process.uptime`	Gauge	seconds	Time the process has been running. Confirms that the OTLP metrics pipeline works. Present once metrics are enabled, independent of any family flag.

Gateway Node Registry

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.gateways.connected`	Gauge	gateways	Gateways currently registered with Tyk Dashboard, by node version, segmentation, and tags.
`tyk.dashboard.gateways.heartbeat_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Time of the last heartbeat from a registered gateway, by node ID, hostname, node version, segmentation, tags, address, and process ID.
`tyk.dashboard.gateways.loaded_apis`	Gauge	APIs	Number of APIs loaded on a registered gateway, by the same labels as the heartbeat. Only reported for gateways that send their counts.
`tyk.dashboard.gateways.loaded_policies`	Gauge	policies	Number of policies loaded on a registered gateway, by the same labels as the heartbeat. Only reported for gateways that send their counts.

Full label detail (node version, tags, address, process ID) depends on the connecting gateway sending node metadata headers. Older gateways report a limited label set until you upgrade them. See Connectivity and Fleet Health.

Management API

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`http.server.request.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Tyk Dashboard API request latency, by HTTP method, route (the registered route pattern, or `unmatched`), and status class (`1xx` to `5xx`).
`http.server.active_requests`	UpDownCounter	requests	Tyk Dashboard API requests currently in flight, by HTTP method.

License

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.license.gateways_limit`	Gauge	gateways	Number of gateway connections allowed under the current license. -1 means unlimited. 0 means the license could not be verified.
`tyk.dashboard.license.gateways_used`	Gauge	gateways	Number of gateway connections currently in use against the license. Not reported until the first successful read.
`tyk.dashboard.license.expiry_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Expiry time of the Tyk Dashboard license. 0 means the license could not be verified.

See Expiry and Build Info.

Change Propagation

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.notifications.published`	Counter	notifications	Configuration change notifications published to gateways, by channel (`tyk.cluster.notifications`, `tyk.cluster.keyspace.ops`) and resource type.
`tyk.dashboard.notifications.failures`	Counter	notifications	Configuration change notifications that failed to publish, including marshal errors, by channel and resource type.

Objects and Governance

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.objects.orgs.count`	Gauge	organizations	Number of organizations.
`tyk.dashboard.objects.apis.count`	Gauge	APIs	Number of APIs, by organization, API type (`classic`, `oas`, `mcp`), and state (`active`, `inactive`).
`tyk.dashboard.objects.policies.count`	Gauge	policies	Number of policies, by organization and state (`active`, `draft`, `deny`).
`tyk.dashboard.objects.users.count`	Gauge	users	Number of Tyk Dashboard users, by organization and state (`active`, `inactive`).
`tyk.dashboard.objects.rulesets.count`	Gauge	rulesets	Number of governance rulesets, by organization, resource type (`oas-api`, `mcp-api`, `unknown`), and state (`active`, `inactive`).
`tyk.dashboard.governance.apis.count`	Gauge	APIs	Number of APIs by governance compliance status (`compliant`, `non_compliant`, `unassessed`), by organization, scope (`overall`, `category`), and category.
`tyk.dashboard.governance.rulesets.count`	Gauge	rulesets	Number of governance rulesets per category view, by organization, category, resource type, and state. Only reported when category views are configured.

Tyk Dashboard refreshes these counts every 300 seconds by default, independently of the export interval. To change it, set opentelemetry.metrics.objects_metrics.collection_interval. The governance metrics are only exported when the license includes governance and opentelemetry.metrics.objects_metrics.governance is not set to false. The inventory metrics keep exporting without them.

Dependency Pressure

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.redis.pool.active`	Gauge	connections	Active connections in the shared Redis pool, by component (`temporal_storage`), store (`redis`), and pool (`shared`).
`tyk.dashboard.redis.pool.idle`	Gauge	connections	Idle connections in the shared Redis pool, by component, store, and pool.
`tyk.dashboard.redis.pool.max`	Gauge	connections	Configured maximum size of the Redis pool, by component, store, and pool. Not reported when the pool is unbounded or Redis runs as a cluster client.
`tyk.dashboard.datastore.pool.active`	Gauge	connections	Active datastore connections, by component (`main`, `analytics`, `logs`, `uptime`), store (`mongo`, `postgres`, `mysql`), and pool (`read`, `write`, `shared`).
`tyk.dashboard.datastore.pool.idle`	Gauge	connections	Idle datastore connections, by component, store, and pool.
`tyk.dashboard.datastore.pool.max`	Gauge	connections	Configured maximum size of a datastore pool, by component, store, and pool. Not reported when `max_open_connections` is unset.
`tyk.dashboard.datastore.pool.wait_duration`	Counter	seconds	Cumulative time that requests have waited for a datastore connection, by component, store, and pool.

See Dependency and Pool Metrics.

Self Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.health`	Gauge	boolean	Whether a dependency is healthy (1) or not (0), by component (`main`, `analytics`, `logs`, `uptime`, `temporal_storage`) and store (`mongo`, `postgres`, `mysql`, `redis`).

Certificate Expiry

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.cert.expiry_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Expiry time of a Tyk Dashboard TLS certificate, by certificate type (`http_tls`) and domain. Not reported when TLS is off.

Build Info and Exporter Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.dashboard.build.info`	Gauge	info	Always 1. Carries the Tyk Dashboard version and Go version as labels.
`tyk.dashboard.telemetry.exporter.healthy`	Gauge	boolean	Whether the metrics exporter itself is healthy (1) or not (0), by provider. A fully failed exporter cannot report 0, so also alert when the series is absent.

Tyk MDCB Metrics

The Tyk MDCB example dashboard shows its dependency health, connection pools, and RPC requests.

Tyk MDCB example dashboard in Grafana showing dependency health, connection pool saturation, connections in use, idle and pool size, and RPC requests by result and latency

Uptime

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`process.uptime`	Gauge	seconds	Time since the Tyk MDCB replica started. Confirms that the OTLP metrics pipeline works. Present once metrics are enabled, independent of any family flag.

Connectivity and Churn

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.connected`	Gauge	gateways	Whether a gateway is currently connected to Tyk MDCB (1 per connected node), by gateway, hostname, organization, group, version, and whether it is segmented.
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.apis_loaded`	Gauge	APIs	Number of APIs currently loaded on a connected gateway, by gateway, hostname, organization, group, and version.
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.policies_loaded`	Gauge	policies	Number of policies currently loaded on a connected gateway, by gateway, hostname, organization, group, and version.
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.connect_errors`	Counter	errors	Failed gateway connection attempts, by error type (`eof`, `timeout`, `tls`, `bad_request`, `invalid_credentials`, `malformed_session`, `hybrid_not_enabled`, `hybrid_check_error`, `node_register_error`).
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.reconnects`	Counter	reconnects	Reconnection attempts from a gateway that was already registered, by gateway, hostname, organization, and group.
`tyk.mdcb.gateway.last_heartbeat_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Time of the last heartbeat received from a gateway, by gateway, hostname, and group.

See Connectivity and Fleet Health.

RPC

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.rpc.requests`	Counter	calls	RPC calls handled, by method, gateway, group, and result (`ok`, `denied`, `error`).
`tyk.mdcb.rpc.bytes`	Counter	bytes	Payload size of RPC traffic, counted before encoding and compression, by method, gateway, group, and direction (`inbound`, `outbound`).
`tyk.mdcb.rpc.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time to handle an RPC call, by method.

Configuration and Key Sync Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.sync.last_success_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Time of the last successful sync, by group, resource type (`keys`, `certs`, `oauth`, `apis`, `policies`), and sync mode (`synchronizer`, `on_demand`).
`tyk.mdcb.sync.failures`	Counter	failures	Failed sync attempts, by group, resource type, error type, and sync mode.
`tyk.mdcb.sync.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time to complete a batched synchronizer sync, by resource type.
`tyk.mdcb.keyspace.events`	Counter	events	Key-space events processed, by event type.

Analytics Ingestion

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.analytics.records`	Counter	records	Analytics records processed, by organization, analytics type (`raw`, `aggregated`, `mcp`, `mcp_aggregated`), and result (`accepted`, `stored`, `failed`). Aggregated types count documents, not requests.
`tyk.mdcb.analytics.purge.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Time to hand a batch of analytics records to storage, by analytics type and result (`stored`, `failed`).
`tyk.mdcb.analytics.bytes`	Counter	bytes	Volume of analytics data ingested.

Dependency Pressure

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.connection_pool.active`	Gauge	connections	Active connections in a dependency pool, by component (`rpc_server`, `datastore`, `temporal_storage`) and store (`mongo`, `postgres`, `redis`). Store is not set for `rpc_server`.
`tyk.mdcb.connection_pool.idle`	Gauge	connections	Idle connections in a dependency pool, by component and store. Not reported for `rpc_server` or for backends that do not report it.
`tyk.mdcb.connection_pool.max`	Gauge	connections	Configured maximum size of a dependency pool, by component and store. Not reported when the pool is unbounded.
`tyk.mdcb.connection_pool.rejected`	Counter	connections	Connections refused because a pool was at its limit, by component (currently `rpc_server` only).

See Dependency and Pool Metrics.

Self Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.health`	Gauge	boolean	Whether a dependency is healthy (1) or not (0), by component (`datastore`, `temporal_storage`, `rpc_server`) and store (`mongo`, `postgres`, `redis`).

Certificate and License Expiry

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.cert.expiry_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Expiry time of a certificate, by certificate type (`rpc_tls`, `http_tls`). Not reported when TLS is off or the certificate cannot be parsed.
`tyk.mdcb.license.expiry_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Expiry time of the Tyk MDCB license. Not reported when the license has no expiry.

See Expiry and Build Info.

Build Info and Exporter Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.mdcb.build.info`	Gauge	info	Always 1. Carries the Tyk MDCB version and Go version as labels.
`tyk.mdcb.telemetry.exporter.healthy`	Gauge	boolean	Whether the metrics exporter itself is healthy (1) or not (0), by provider. A fully failed exporter cannot report 0, so also alert when the series is absent.

See Expiry and Build Info.

Tyk Developer Portal Metrics

The Tyk Developer Portal example dashboard shows the sync status for each provider.

Tyk Developer Portal example dashboard in Grafana showing provider sync status, Tyk Dashboard reachability, time since last successful sync, failed syncs by cause, syncs per hour, and sync duration

Uptime

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`process.uptime`	Gauge	seconds	Process uptime canary. Confirms that the OTLP metrics pipeline works. Present once metrics are enabled, independent of any family flag.

Provider Sync Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.portal.provider.sync.last_success_timestamp`	Gauge	unix timestamp (seconds)	Unix timestamp of the last successful sync between the portal and its Tyk Dashboard provider, per provider. Keeps its last good value when a sync stalls, so a stalled sync never reads as healthy.
`tyk.portal.provider.sync.failures`	Counter	failures	Count of failed provider syncs, by provider and error type (`auth`, `network`, `timeout`, `dashboard_error`, `init`, `db`, `other`).
`tyk.portal.provider.sync.duration`	Histogram	seconds	Duration of each provider sync attempt, by provider and result (`success` or `failure`).
`tyk.portal.provider.reachable`	Gauge	boolean	Whether the portal reached its Tyk Dashboard provider on the last sync attempt: 1 reachable, 0 not. Stays at 1 on an internal (`db`) failure, because the provider did answer.

See Provider Sync Health.

Self Health

Metric Name	Type	Unit	Description
`tyk.portal.health`	Gauge	boolean	Whether a portal dependency is healthy (1) or not (0), by component (`database`, `storage`) and store, which is the engine behind it (`sqlite3`, `mysql`, `postgres` for database; `fs`, `db`, `s3` for storage).

See Dependency and Pool Metrics.

​Availability

​Tyk Gateway Metrics

​Request Metrics

​Default Dimensions

​Go Runtime Metrics

​Configuration State Metrics

​Token Exchange Metrics

​Dimensions

​Resource Attributes

​Tyk-Specific Resource Attributes

​Standard OTel Resource Attributes

​Tyk Dashboard Metrics

​Uptime

​Gateway Node Registry

​Management API

​License

​Change Propagation

​Objects and Governance

​Dependency Pressure

​Self Health

​Certificate Expiry

​Build Info and Exporter Health

​Tyk MDCB Metrics

​Uptime

​Connectivity and Churn

​RPC

​Configuration and Key Sync Health

​Analytics Ingestion

​Dependency Pressure

​Self Health

​Certificate and License Expiry

​Build Info and Exporter Health

​Tyk Developer Portal Metrics

​Uptime

​Provider Sync Health

​Self Health

Availability

Tyk Gateway Metrics

Request Metrics

Default Dimensions

Go Runtime Metrics

Configuration State Metrics

Token Exchange Metrics

Dimensions

Resource Attributes

Tyk-Specific Resource Attributes

Standard OTel Resource Attributes

Tyk Dashboard Metrics

Uptime

Gateway Node Registry

Management API

License

Change Propagation

Objects and Governance

Dependency Pressure

Self Health

Certificate Expiry

Build Info and Exporter Health

Tyk MDCB Metrics

Uptime

Connectivity and Churn

RPC

Configuration and Key Sync Health

Analytics Ingestion

Dependency Pressure

Self Health

Certificate and License Expiry

Build Info and Exporter Health

Tyk Developer Portal Metrics

Uptime

Provider Sync Health

Self Health