signoz CLI

Query traces, logs, and metrics from SigNoz directly in your terminal.

Install

npm i -g @jcit/signoz

Authentication

Credentials are resolved in this order: CLI flag → environment variable → system keychain → default.

Option 1: System keychain (recommended)

signoz auth login
# Interactive prompts for URL and token

signoz auth login --url https://signoz.example.com --token sk-xxx
# Non-interactive

Credentials are stored securely in macOS Keychain (security) or Linux libsecret (secret-tool).

Option 2: Environment variables

export SIGNOZ_URL=https://signoz.example.com
export SIGNOZ_TOKEN=sk-xxx

Option 3: Per-command flags

Every command accepts --url and --token to override credentials for that invocation.

signoz query --url https://signoz.example.com --token sk-xxx --promql 'up'

Logout

signoz auth logout

Commands

query — Unified query API

Query traces, logs, and metrics. Supports three input modes (mutually exclusive):

Time range, output, and auth options:

--url and --token flags are available on all commands for per-invocation auth override.

Duration = "ago": --since 1h means "1 hour ago". --until 1d means "1 day ago" (not "for 1 day"). So --since 7d --until 1d queries from 7 days ago to 1 day ago.

SQL time injection: Use {{startms}}/{{endms}} (milliseconds), {{startns}}/{{endns}} (nanoseconds), or {{starts}}/{{ends}} (seconds) in your SQL. These are replaced with the values from --since/--until before the query is sent.

PromQL limitations

Delta-temporality metrics are not queryable via PromQL. SigNoz's PromQL engine only supports Cumulative and Gauge metrics. Many SigNoz internal metrics (e.g. signozcallstotal, signoz_latency.*) use Delta temporality and will return empty results. Use --sql for Delta metrics instead.

OTel dot-separated metric names (e.g. http.client.request.duration.bucket) are not valid PromQL identifiers. Use the {name="..."} selector syntax instead of bare metric names.

To check a metric's temporality, use the metrics command (see below) or:

signoz metrics                          # List all metrics with temporality
signoz metrics | jq '.[] | select(.promql == "no")'  # Show Delta-only metrics

PromQL examples

# OTel metric with dot-separated name (Cumulative — works)
signoz query --promql '{__name__="http.client.request.duration.bucket"}' --since 1h

# Prometheus-style metric (if Cumulative)
signoz query --promql 'rate(http_requests_total[5m])' --since 1h

# Table output for quick scan
signoz query --promql '{__name__="db.client.connections.usage"}' --format table

# From a specific start date to now
signoz query --promql 'process_cpu_seconds_total' --since 2024-01-15T00:00:00Z

ClickHouse SQL examples

# Count logs from the last 24 hours — {{start_ns}}/{{end_ns}} injected from --since
signoz query --since 24h --sql "
  SELECT toStartOfInterval(fromUnixTimestamp64Nano(timestamp), INTERVAL 1 HOUR) AS ts,
         count(*) AS value
  FROM signoz_logs.distributed_logs_v2
  WHERE timestamp >= {{start_ns}} AND timestamp <= {{end_ns}}
    AND ts_bucket_start >= {{start_s}} - 1800 AND ts_bucket_start <= {{end_s}}
  GROUP BY ts ORDER BY ts
"

# Recent raw log rows as a readable table
signoz query --since 1h --request-type raw --format table --sql "
  SELECT timestamp, severity_text, body, trace_id, span_id
  FROM signoz_logs.distributed_logs_v2
  WHERE timestamp >= {{start_ns}} AND timestamp <= {{end_ns}}
    AND ts_bucket_start >= {{start_s}} - 1800 AND ts_bucket_start <= {{end_s}}
  ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 20
"

# Metric samples over the last hour
signoz query --since 1h --sql "
  SELECT toStartOfInterval(toDateTime(intDiv(unix_milli, 1000)), INTERVAL 1 MINUTE) AS ts,
         avg(value) AS value
  FROM signoz_metrics.distributed_samples_v4
  WHERE metric_name = 'signoz_calls_total'
    AND unix_milli >= {{start_ms}} AND unix_milli < {{end_ms}}
  GROUP BY ts ORDER BY ts
"

# Load a saved query from file with custom time range
signoz query -f my-query.json --since 7d --until 1d

File format for -f

The JSON file should follow the SigNoz v5 query_range body format. The start and end fields are overridden by --since/--until:

{
  "schemaVersion": "v1",
  "requestType": "time_series",
  "compositeQuery": {
    "queries": [
      {
        "type": "promql",
        "spec": { "name": "A", "query": "rate(http_requests_total[5m])", "step": 60, "disabled": false, "stats": false }
      }
    ]
  }
}

metrics — Discover available metrics

List all metrics with their temporality, type, and PromQL compatibility:

signoz metrics                          # JSON list of all metrics
signoz metrics --format table           # Quick scan as table

Output fields: name, temporality (Cumulative/Delta/Unspecified), type (Sum/Gauge/Histogram), unit, promql (yes/no).

Use this to determine which metrics can be queried via PromQL (Cumulative/Gauge only) and the exact metric name format.

alerts — List alert rules

signoz alerts                  # JSON output (default)
signoz alerts --format table   # Table output

services — List services

signoz services                # JSON output (default)
signoz services --format table # Table output

API Endpoints

The CLI talks to these SigNoz API endpoints:

Default base URL: http://localhost:3301 (SigNoz local dev).

Auth Header

SigNoz uses a custom auth header SIGNOZ-API-KEY (not Authorization: Bearer). This is handled automatically by the CLI.

Duration Format

Relative durations for --since and --until always mean "X ago from now":

ISO 8601 dates are also accepted: 2024-01-15T00:00:00Z.

ClickHouse SQL Reference for SigNoz

This section documents SigNoz-specific ClickHouse SQL conventions that differ from standard SQL. You must follow these conventions when using --sql.

Tables and Timestamp Formats

Each signal type uses different tables and timestamp formats:

Always use distributed* tables (not local tables like logsv2 or signozindexv3).

Required: tsbucketstart Filter (Logs & Traces)

Logs and Traces tables have tsbucketstart (UInt64, epoch seconds) in their primary key. Always include it for query performance — without it, queries may be extremely slow or time out.

WHERE timestamp >= {startNano} AND timestamp <= {endNano}
  AND ts_bucket_start >= {startSeconds - 1800} AND ts_bucket_start <= {endSeconds}

The -1800 (30 min) buffer on tsbucketstart ensures edge-case rows aren't missed.

Result Column Naming Convention

SigNoz expects specific column names in ClickHouse SQL results:

Complete Query Templates

Logs — Count by severity (last 1 hour)

signoz query --since 1h --sql "
  SELECT toStartOfInterval(fromUnixTimestamp64Nano(timestamp), INTERVAL 1 MINUTE) AS ts,
         severity_text,
         count(*) AS value
  FROM signoz_logs.distributed_logs_v2
  WHERE timestamp >= {{start_ns}} AND timestamp <= {{end_ns}}
    AND ts_bucket_start >= {{start_s}} - 1800 AND ts_bucket_start <= {{end_s}}
  GROUP BY ts, severity_text
  ORDER BY ts
"

Key log columns: severitytext (INFO/ERROR/...), severitynumber, body (message), traceid, spanid, scope_name.

Traces — P99 latency by service (last 1 hour)

signoz query --since 1h --sql "
  SELECT toStartOfInterval(timestamp, INTERVAL 1 MINUTE) AS ts,
         resource_string_service\$\$name AS service,
         quantile(0.99)(duration_nano) / 1e6 AS value
  FROM signoz_traces.distributed_signoz_index_v3
  WHERE timestamp >= '{{start_ns}}' AND timestamp <= '{{end_ns}}'
    AND ts_bucket_start >= {{start_s}} - 1800 AND ts_bucket_start <= {{end_s}}
  GROUP BY ts, service
  ORDER BY ts
"

Key trace columns: name (span name), kindstring, durationnano (Float64, nanoseconds), statuscode (0=unset, 1=ok, 2=error), haserror (Bool), resourcestringservice$$name (service name — note $$ encodes .).

Metrics — Average metric value (last 1 hour)

signoz query --since 1h --sql "
  SELECT toStartOfInterval(toDateTime(intDiv(unix_milli, 1000)), INTERVAL 1 MINUTE) AS ts,
         avg(value) AS value
  FROM signoz_metrics.distributed_samples_v4
  WHERE metric_name = 'http_requests_total'
    AND unix_milli >= {{start_ms}} AND unix_milli < {{end_ms}}
  GROUP BY ts
  ORDER BY ts
"

Attribute Access (Map Columns)

Non-materialized attributes are stored in Map columns, not regular columns:

-- String attributes
attributes_string['http.method']
resources_string['service.name']
scope_string['otel.library.name']

-- Numeric / Boolean attributes
attributes_number['http.status_code']
attributes_bool['error']

-- Check existence
mapContains(attributes_string, 'http.method')

$$ encoding: Materialized columns encode . as $$. For example, service.name → resourcestringservice$$name. Use materialized columns when available for better performance.

Additional Tables

Use GLOBAL IN (not IN) when joining with resource tables in distributed queries.

Troubleshooting