How to Explore All Available Metrics in Prometheus UI (Step-by-Step Guide)?

When working with Prometheus, understanding what metrics are available is the first step toward writing meaningful queries and gaining valuable insights. Whether you're debugging, building dashboards, or just getting familiar with Prometheus, knowing how to browse all available metrics directly from the UI can save a lot of time.

This post walks you through how to explore all the available metrics using Prometheus’s built-in UI.

 

Step 1: Open the Prometheus UI.

Navigate to http://localhost:9090

 

This brings up the default Prometheus expression browser.

 

Step 2: Locate the Expression Bar

At the top of the screen, you’ll see a textbox labeled "Enter expression". This is where you typically enter PromQL queries.

 

On the right end of the expression box, just before the “Execute” button, you’ll find three vertical dots (⋮). Click on the three dots → select "Explore metrics" from the dropdown.

Step 3: Explore Metrics

A new "Explore metrics" panel will open. Here, you’ll see a searchable list of all available metrics that Prometheus is currently scraping.

 

You can scroll through or type to filter the list.

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