Telemetry

Telemetry

Telemetry is optional. Use it when you want usage and performance views in the user portal and control portal, or when you want Prometheus metrics for operations.

For exact environment variable defaults, see Configuration.

What It Adds

Surface	What you get
User portal	Self-scoped telemetry for the authenticated API key.
Control portal	Team, profile, route, dependency, and system telemetry views.
Prometheus	Metrics scraped from a token-protected /metrics endpoint.

Telemetry does not expose memory content. It is operational data about requests, latency, usage, recall, promotion, embedding, verifier, and related runtime activity.

Enable Telemetry Locally

Start with the base compose setup from Quick Start, then add the telemetry overlay:

curl -fsSLo prometheus.yml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markhuangai/dense-mem/main/examples/prometheus.yml
curl -fsSLo docker-compose.telemetry.yml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markhuangai/dense-mem/main/examples/docker-compose.telemetry.yml

export TELEMETRY_SCRAPE_TOKEN="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.telemetry.yml up -d

Prometheus is published only on loopback:

http://127.0.0.1:9090

The overlay also sets:

TELEMETRY_ENABLED=true
TELEMETRY_PROMETHEUS_URL=http://prometheus:9090
TELEMETRY_PROMETHEUS_JOB=dense-mem

Use Telemetry In The Portals

Open the user portal:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/ui

Use your Dense-Mem API key there. The user portal only shows telemetry for the authenticated profile.

Open the control portal:

http://127.0.0.1:8090/

Use CONTROL_PORTAL_TOKEN. The control portal can show broader team, profile, route, dependency, and system views.

Metrics Endpoint

When telemetry is enabled, Dense-Mem exposes Prometheus metrics on the control server at:

http://127.0.0.1:8090/metrics

The endpoint requires TELEMETRY_SCRAPE_TOKEN. Keep it private. The compose overlay gives the token to Prometheus as a Compose secret and scrapes the endpoint from the private network.

Manual check:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TELEMETRY_SCRAPE_TOKEN" \
  http://127.0.0.1:8090/metrics

The endpoint also accepts X-Telemetry-Scrape-Token.

Hosted Demo Telemetry

The disposable demo image uses a separate metrics listener and keeps the control portal disabled. Use the demo telemetry overlay only with docker-compose.demo.yml:

curl -fsSLo prometheus.demo.yml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markhuangai/dense-mem/main/examples/prometheus.demo.yml
curl -fsSLo docker-compose.demo.telemetry.yml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markhuangai/dense-mem/main/examples/docker-compose.demo.telemetry.yml

export TELEMETRY_SCRAPE_TOKEN="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
docker compose -f docker-compose.demo.yml -f docker-compose.demo.telemetry.yml up -d

The demo overlay scrapes demo:8091 on the private Compose network and uses TELEMETRY_PROMETHEUS_JOB=dense-mem-demo.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Check
Portal says telemetry is unavailable	TELEMETRY_ENABLED=true and TELEMETRY_PROMETHEUS_URL=http://prometheus:9090.
Prometheus has no targets	prometheus.yml is in the same directory as docker-compose.yml.
/metrics returns unauthorized	TELEMETRY_SCRAPE_TOKEN matches the value Prometheus received.
Dashboard is empty	Generate some authenticated traffic, then refresh after one scrape interval.
Shared Prometheus shows wrong data	Set TELEMETRY_PROMETHEUS_JOB to the intended scrape job.