SignalFx Integrations

Each directory in this repo represents a different integration with SignalFx. At a bare minimum each integration directory needs a README.md and a meta.yaml (see below). If the integration has a fixed set of metrics that are associated with it, you should also have a metrics.yaml file.

For any new integrations, you should set useLegacyBuild: false in the meta.yaml (never use the legacy build for new stuff).

Meta.yaml

Each integration requires a meta.yaml file that provides basic metadata describing the integration. The fields in the meta.yaml file are:

field name	description
display_name	name that will display in the integration tile
description	short description of integration
project_url	URL of 'metadata' directory (https://github.com/signalfx/integrations/tree/master/[integration-foo])
code	URL of code repository
featured	flag 'true' to put integration in "Top Integrations" section but 'false' otherwise
logo_large	URL of 300x300 pixel logo image
logo_small	URL of 150x150 pixel logo image
feature	optional line to specify the feature associated with the integration
useLegacyBuild	If set to false, the Jinja (new) build templating system will be used

Example 1:

display_name: "AppDynamics Metrics Integration"
description: "AppDynamics metrics integration"
project_url: "https://github.com/signalfx/integrations/tree/master/appdynamics"
code: "https://github.com/signalfx/appd-integration"
featured: false
logo_large: "/images/repos/appdynamics/img/integrations_appdynamics%402x.png"
logo_small: "/images/repos/appdynamics/img/integrations_appdynamics.png"
feature: "<feature_name>"

Example 2:

browse_categories:
- Database
code: https://aws.amazon.com/rds/
data_signature: namespace:"AWS/RDS"
description: Monitor Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) using SignalFx and AWS CloudWatch.
display_name: Amazon RDS
featured: false
in_app_categories:
- AWSservicesMonitored
logo_large: integration_awsrds.png
logo_small: integration_awsrds.png
project_url: https://github.com/signalfx/integrations/tree/master/aws-rds
useLegacyBuild: true

metrics.yaml

To help users make sense of their new data, provide documentation of each metric and dimension that the integration emits, including name, type (counter, gauge, or cumulative counter) and description of what it measures.

This should go in the file called metrics.yaml in the integration directory.

Sample dashboard(s)

Include a dashboard for your users to import into their monitoring solution, so that they can get instant value out of running your integration. SignalFx provides extended trial accounts for plugin developers that you can use to develop your dashboard. Contact us to learn more.

New Template System

To make it easier to control the docs generated from this repo (the integration tiles in app and on the product docs site), there is now a new build system that is based entirely on Jinja templates for maximum control by the documentation team and other contributors.

For new template functionality to be enabled for a particular integration, the useLegacyBuild flag in the integration's meta.yaml file must be set to false.

The Jinja template for each integration is the README.md.jinja file in that integration directory. That file must be present and named exactly that. No other markdown files in the directory will be considered by the build process.

All *.yaml files in the integration directory will be deserialized and made available in the context of the template as a variable with the base name of the yaml file. For example, metrics.yaml is available as metrics in the template.

The 'README.md.jinja' file must include the line {% import "macros.jinja" as macros %} somewhere near the top, so that all rendered templates in this new system have the macro helpers defined in macros.jinja available for use.

To apply the Jinja template to an existing integration:

1. Create a 'README.md.jinja' file in the directory for that integration, either from scratch or by copying and renaming a legacy README.md file.
2. Ensure that the 'README.md.jinja' file has the content that you intend to document, because it will be treated as the single source for both tiles and product-docs repos.
3. Verify that the README.md.jinja file includes the line {% import "macros.jinja" as macros %} above your original content.
4. In the meta.yaml file for the integration, set the 'useLegacyBuild' flag to 'false' so that a build with the Jinja template becomes default behavior.
5. Delete the original (non-Jinja) README.md file, if one exists.

It may be convenient to include all steps of the template application process in a single commit or pull request to whatever branch you are using for development. If the 'useLegacyBuild' flag is set to 'true', then the build process ignores your README.md.jinja file or generates unexpected results. Similarly, if a Jinja README and a non-Jinja README are in the same directory, your pull requests may generate file conflicts, because the build process merges all markdown (.md) files in a directory.

Tile Tabs

The tabs in the integration tiles in the web app (SignalView) are determined by the presence of ## (second) level headers in the README.md.jinja template. Any header at that level is considered a tab title, and all content under it until the next second-level header (or the end of the file) will be under that tab.

You should not use first level headers (#) except when sending the docs to product-docs. Anything not inside a ## header in the README.md.jinja file is ignored by SignalView when rendering the tiles.

Differentiating between tiles and docs

To differentiate content based on where the docs are being rendered for, you can use conditional statements in Jinja along with the target variable. For Web App Tile builds, the template uses a context variable target with a value of tile. For product docs builds, the target variable is docs.

Automated scripts render the template for tile in the Integrations repository and for docs in the product-docs repository. For example, the conditional "if" statements in the example below render the content between them for the Integrations repo, but not for the product-docs repo. Note that conditional statements are paired, so that an if statement is closed by an endif statement:

Conditional text example

{% if target == "tile" -%}

Built-in dashboards

• Apache Web Servers: Overview of data from all Apache webserver instances.

[<img src='./img/dashboard_apache_webservers.png' width=200px>](./img/dashboard_apache_webservers.png)

• Apache Web Server: Focus on a single Apache webserver instance.

[<img src='./img/dashboard_apache_webserver.png' width=200px>](./img/dashboard_apache_webserver.png)

{%- endif %}

Local Testing of Tiles

The web app tiles are sourced from a Javascript module that is generated from the content in this repo. That module is built with the ./build script in the root of this repo. To run this script, do the following:

1. Verify that you have Python 3 installed on your machine.
2. In your terminal application, navigate to the root of this integrations repo.
3. Run the following command:

pip3 install --user -r ./requirements.txt

4. Run the following command:

./build

If the build completes successfully, you receive a command that you can run to serve this JS module and associated images via a local HTTP server.

You can then run SignalView (the web app) with the following content in the local.config.js file in the root of the SignalView repo:

module.exports = {
    integrationsDocsUrl: "http://localhost:3005/",
}

Access the local SignalView instance to preview the latest build of this repo.