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Naming Conventions

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Naming Conventions

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When creating events, use the following conventions for field names and abbreviations.

Field Names

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Use the following naming conventions for field names:

  • All fields must be lower case.
  • Use snake case (underscores) for combining words.
  • Group related fields into subdocuments by using dot (.) notation. Groups typically have common prefixes. For example, if you have fields called CPULoad and CPUSystem in a service, you would convert them into cpu.load and cpu.system in the event.
  • Avoid repeating the namespace in field names. If a word or abbreviation appears in the namespace, it’s not needed in the field name. For example, instead of cpu.cpu_load, use cpu.load.
  • Use standardised names and avoid using abbreviations that aren’t commonly known.
  • Organise the documents from general to specific to allow for namespacing. The type, such as .pct, should always be last. For example, system.core.user.pct.
  • If two fields are the same, but with different units, remove the less granular one. For example, include timeout.sec, but don’t include timeout.min. If a less granular value is required, you can calculate it later.

  • If a field name matches the namespace used for nested fields, add .value to the field name. For example, instead of:

    workers
workers.busy
workers.idle

    Use:

    workers.value
workers.busy
workers.idle
  • Do not use dots (.) in individual field names. Dots are reserved for grouping related fields into subdocuments.
  • Use singular and plural names properly to reflect the field content. For example, use requests_per_sec rather than request_per_sec.

Standardised Names

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Here is a list of standardised names and units that are used across all Beats:

Use…​ Instead of…​

avg

average

connection

conn

count

day

days, d

max

maximum

min

minimum

pct

percentage

request

req

sec

seconds, second, s

ms

millisecond, millis

mb

megabytes

msg

message

ns

nanoseconds

norm

normalized

us

microseconds
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