Configure endpoint rules

Learn how to configure endpoint rules to rename or consolidate endpoints for analysis, metrics, and Business Transaction monitoring.

Configure endpoint rules to rename or consolidate endpoints for targeted analysis, cleaner metrics, and consistent Business Transaction monitoring.

Endpoint rules affect endpoint aggregation and display. The original endpoint remains available in trace data. Use rules to organize and refine endpoint names. If OpenTelemetry instrumentation generates endpoint names containing dynamic values, correct the instrumentation first.

Prerequisites

Confirm that:

  • Business Transaction compliance analysis identified endpoints that need renaming or consolidation.

  • Representative traffic includes the affected endpoints.

  • Use instrumentation that normalizes dynamic path parameters where supported.

  • Review the migration inventory with the dashboard, detector, and application owners. Identify dashboards, detectors, workflows, and runbooks that filter, group, or link by the affected service, operation, endpoint, or workflow names. Record these dependencies in the migration-wave plan before changing the names.

Identify them by checking:

Configuration What to review

Dashboards

Chart filters, group-by dimensions, dashboard variables, and links that use service, endpoint, operation, or workflow names

Detectors

SignalFlow filters and groupings based on those names or their MetricSets

Workflows

Rules that match operations and assign an sf_workflow value

Runbooks and links

Saved searches, deep links, and instructions containing existing names

Review this information because changing a name or grouping rule can cause an existing dashboard, detector, or workflow rule to stop matching the intended telemetry. The configuration remains valid but no longer shows data or generates the expected alerts.

Select the match condition

A match condition determines which observed operations the grouping rule applies to. Select a condition that matches all intended operations while excluding unrelated operations.

Match condition Use when

Contains

A stable substring identifies the required endpoint set

Starts with

All endpoints under a stable path prefix need the same treatment

Match

One exact endpoint requires a specific name or treatment

Use a supported placeholder, such as [uri_first:N,/], only when instrumentation extracts stable, bounded path segments.

Configure the rules

  1. List the current endpoint names for the service.

  2. Define the expected target name for each affected endpoint set.

  3. Select the narrowest match condition that satisfies the requirement.

  4. Order the rules from most specific to most general. The first matching rule takes precedence.

  5. Check for overlaps that cause a general rule to mask a specific rule.

  6. Configure the rules at the service level.

  7. Record the service, match condition, match value, target name, order, owner, and intended monitoring outcome.

  8. Generate representative traffic.

Verify the result

Confirm that:

  • Each affected endpoint uses the expected target name.

  • The most specific rule takes effect when rules overlap.

  • Unrelated endpoints remain unchanged.

  • Endpoint metrics, dashboards, and the Endpoints view use the intended aggregation.

  • The original endpoints remain searchable in traces.

  • No rule creates high-cardinality target names.

If actual identifiers still appear in endpoint names, correct or customize the OpenTelemetry instrumentation before relying on endpoint rules.

Complete this task when the approved endpoints have the expected names and aggregation and you document all rule-order dependencies.