redis-observability
redis/agent-skills
Monitor Redis health and diagnose performance issues with key metrics and built-in commands.
What is redis-observability?
Redis observability guidance covering which metrics to monitor (memory, connections, hit ratio, ops/sec, rejected connections), which built-in commands to use for incident triage (SLOWLOG, INFO, MEMORY DOCTOR, CLIENT LIST, FT.PROFILE), and when to use Redis Insight. Use when setting up monitoring or alerts, diagnosing performance regressions, profiling slow queries, or wiring metrics into Prometheus, Datadog, or similar systems.
- Identifies 7 critical metrics to export from INFO (used_memory, connected_clients, blocked_clients, instantaneous_ops_per_sec, keyspace hit ratio, rejected_connections, rdb_last_save_time)
- Provides alert thresholds for each metric (e.g., memory > 80% of maxmemory, hit ratio < 80%)
- Documents built-in debugging commands: SLOWLOG, MEMORY DOCTOR, CLIENT LIST, FT.PROFILE for ad-hoc diagnosis
- Shows how to calculate cache hit ratio from keyspace_hits and keyspace_misses
- Explains when to use Redis Insight GUI for interactive profiling and visual metric inspection
How to install redis-observability
npx skills add https://github.com/redis/agent-skills --skill redis-observabilityHow to use redis-observability
- 1.Export the 7 key metrics from INFO to your monitoring system (Prometheus, Datadog, CloudWatch, etc.)
- 2.Set up alerts on metric thresholds: memory > 80% of maxmemory, hit ratio < 80%, rejected_connections > 0
- 3.When investigating performance issues, run SLOWLOG GET 10 to find slow commands and their durations
- 4.Run MEMORY DOCTOR to get a summary of memory pressure and unusual patterns
- 5.Use CLIENT LIST to inspect open connections and identify stuck clients
- 6.For search performance, run FT.PROFILE <index> SEARCH QUERY to profile slow FT.SEARCH queries
- 7.Optionally use Redis Insight GUI for interactive metric inspection and visual query profiling during development or incident response
Use cases
- Setting up monitoring and alerting for a Redis instance in production
- Diagnosing a performance regression (high latency, memory pressure, connection storms)
- Profiling a slow FT.SEARCH query or pipeline to identify bottlenecks
- Wiring Redis metrics into Prometheus, Datadog, CloudWatch, or similar monitoring systems
- Performing incident triage by running SLOWLOG and MEMORY DOCTOR during outages
- DevOps engineers setting up Redis monitoring
- Backend engineers diagnosing Redis performance issues
- SREs responding to Redis-related incidents
- Developers profiling search queries in Redis Stack
redis-observability FAQ
Exporting metrics to Prometheus/Datadog gives you historical trends and alerting; Redis Insight is a GUI for interactive debugging and visual inspection. Use both: metrics for monitoring, Insight for incident triage.
Alert when hit ratio drops below 80%. Lower ratios indicate cache misses and potential memory pressure or eviction.
Start with SLOWLOG GET 10 to find slow commands, then MEMORY DOCTOR for memory diagnostics, then CLIENT LIST if you suspect connection issues.
Divide keyspace_hits by (keyspace_hits + keyspace_misses). The skill includes a Python example.
Your Redis instance hit the maxclients limit and refused new connections. Increase maxclients or reduce client count.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from redis/agent-skills.
name: redis-observability description: Redis observability guidance — which metrics to monitor (memory, connections, hit ratio, ops/sec, rejected connections), which built-in commands to reach for during incident triage (SLOWLOG, INFO, MEMORY DOCTOR, CLIENT LIST, FT.PROFILE), and when to use the Redis Insight GUI. Use when setting up monitoring or alerts for a Redis instance, diagnosing a performance regression, profiling a slow FT.SEARCH query, or wiring Redis metrics into Prometheus, Datadog, or similar. license: MIT metadata: author: Redis, Inc. version: "0.1.0"
Redis Observability
What to watch, what to run, and what to alert on. Covers the metrics every Redis deployment should monitor and the built-in commands for ad-hoc diagnosis.
When to apply
- Setting up monitoring or alerts for a Redis instance.
- Diagnosing a Redis performance regression (high latency, memory pressure, connection storms).
- Profiling a slow
FT.SEARCHor pipeline. - Wiring Redis metrics into Prometheus, Datadog, CloudWatch, or similar.
1. Monitor these metrics
These come from INFO and should be exported to your monitoring system.
| Metric | What it tells you | Alert when |
|---|---|---|
used_memory | Current memory usage | > 80% of maxmemory |
connected_clients | Open connections | Sudden spikes or drops |
blocked_clients | Clients waiting on blocking ops | > 0 sustained |
instantaneous_ops_per_sec | Current throughput | Significant drops |
keyspace_hits / keyspace_misses | Cache hit ratio | Hit ratio < 80% |
rejected_connections | Hit maxclients cap | > 0 |
rdb_last_save_time | Last persistence snapshot | Too old vs. RPO |
info = redis.info()
hit_ratio = info["keyspace_hits"] / max(1, info["keyspace_hits"] + info["keyspace_misses"])
print(f"Memory: {info['used_memory_human']}")
print(f"Clients: {info['connected_clients']}")
print(f"Ops/sec: {info['instantaneous_ops_per_sec']}")
print(f"Hit ratio: {hit_ratio:.1%}")
2. Built-in commands for debugging
Reach for these when something looks off.
| Topic | Command |
|---|---|
| Slow commands | SLOWLOG GET 10 / SLOWLOG LEN / SLOWLOG RESET |
| Server snapshot | INFO all (or INFO memory / INFO stats / INFO clients / INFO replication) |
| Memory diagnostics | MEMORY DOCTOR / MEMORY STATS / MEMORY USAGE <key> |
| Connections | CLIENT LIST / CLIENT INFO |
| RQE / Search | FT.INFO <idx> / FT.PROFILE <idx> SEARCH QUERY "..." |
The two most useful for incident triage:
SLOWLOG GETto find queries that exceeded theslowlog-log-slower-thanthreshold (10ms by default). The output shows the exact command and duration in microseconds.MEMORY DOCTORfor memory pressure — it returns a one-paragraph summary of what's unusual about memory usage right now.
for entry in redis.slowlog_get(10):
print(f"{entry['duration']}μs {entry['command']}")
3. Redis Insight
For interactive use (running queries, browsing keys, profiling indexes), Redis Insight is the official GUI. It surfaces the same SLOWLOG / INFO / FT.PROFILE data visually and includes Redis Copilot for natural-language queries. Useful during development and incident response; not a replacement for exporting metrics to your monitoring system.
References
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