- Updated: March 19, 2026
- 5 min read
Step-by-Step Guide to Designing a Grafana Dashboard for OpenClaw Rating‑API Edge CRDT Metrics
To design, configure, and visualize a Grafana dashboard for OpenClaw’s rating‑API edge CRDT metrics, you must connect Grafana to a Prometheus data source, create panels that query the CRDT metrics, customize the visual layout, and set up alert rules that fire on threshold breaches.
1. Introduction
OpenClaw’s rating‑API edge exposes a set of Conflict‑Free Replicated Data Type (CRDT) counters that track real‑time rating events across distributed nodes. Monitoring these counters is essential for developers and DevOps engineers who need to guarantee data consistency, detect anomalies, and maintain SLA compliance.
Grafana, paired with Prometheus, offers a powerful, open‑source stack for time‑series visualization and alerting. This guide walks you through every step—from installing the Prometheus exporter for OpenClaw to publishing a polished dashboard on UBOS platform overview.
2. Prerequisites
- Running OpenClaw instance with the
rating‑apiservice enabled. - Prometheus server (v2.30+) reachable from Grafana.
- Grafana instance (v9.0+) with admin access.
- Basic knowledge of PromQL and Grafana panel configuration.
- Docker or Kubernetes environment (optional but recommended for quick setup).
Ensure network connectivity between Grafana and Prometheus; firewalls or service meshes must allow port 9090 (Prometheus) and 3000 (Grafana).
3. Setting up Prometheus data source in Grafana
3.1. Add Prometheus as a data source
- Log in to Grafana and navigate to Configuration > Data Sources.
- Click Add data source and select Prometheus.
- Enter the URL of your Prometheus server, e.g.
http://prometheus:9090. - Leave the default
Scrape interval(15s) unless your OpenClaw exporter uses a different interval. - Click Save & test. You should see a green confirmation message.
3.2. Verify CRDT metrics are scraped
Open the Prometheus UI (http://prometheus:9090/graph) and run a simple query:
rate(openclaw_rating_api_crdt_total[1m])If you receive a numeric series, Prometheus is correctly ingesting the CRDT counters.
4. Creating the Grafana dashboard
4.1. Add a new dashboard
- From the left menu, choose + > Dashboard.
- Click Add new panel to open the query editor.
4.2. Adding panels for CRDT metrics
We’ll create three core panels:
- Total Ratings Received – a single‑stat counter.
- Rating Rate (per minute) – a time‑series line chart.
- Top‑Rated Items – a bar chart grouped by
item_id.
Panel 1 – Total Ratings Received
sum(openclaw_rating_api_crdt_total)Set the visualization type to Stat, enable Value mappings to show “No data” when the metric is zero, and apply a green color scheme for healthy status.
Panel 2 – Rating Rate (per minute)
rate(openclaw_rating_api_crdt_total[1m])Choose Time series as the visualization. Add a Legend entry {{instance}} to differentiate nodes. Enable Thresholds at 1000 rps (red) and 200 rps (yellow) to highlight spikes.
Panel 3 – Top‑Rated Items
topk(5, sum by (item_id) (rate(openclaw_rating_api_crdt_total[5m])))Switch to Bar gauge. Turn on Stacking if you want cumulative totals across instances. Add a tooltip that shows the exact rate per minute.
4.3. Configuring queries
All queries use the openclaw_rating_api_crdt_total metric exported by the OpenClaw Prometheus exporter. Adjust the [1m] or [5m] windows based on your latency requirements.
4.4. Visual customization
- Apply a dark theme for better contrast in control rooms.
- Use
Panel > General > Descriptionto add markdown notes for future maintainers. - Enable Auto‑refresh every 30 seconds to keep the dashboard live.
“A well‑structured Grafana dashboard reduces mean‑time‑to‑detect (MTTD) by up to 40 % for distributed systems.” – Internal monitoring study, 2023
5. Configuring alerts for rating‑API edge metrics
Grafana’s built‑in alerting engine can push notifications to Slack, PagerDuty, or email. Follow these steps to create a robust alert rule:
- Open the Rating Rate panel and click the Alert tab.
- Press Create Alert Rule.
- Define the condition:
WHEN avg() OF query(A, 1m, now) IS ABOVE 800This triggers when the average rating rate exceeds 800 rps over a one‑minute window.
- Set the Evaluation interval to
30sand the For field to2mto avoid flapping. - Choose a Notification channel (e.g., Slack #ops-alerts). If you haven’t created one, go to Alerting > Notification channels and add a new Slack webhook.
- Save the rule and enable Mute timing during scheduled maintenance windows.
For critical thresholds (e.g., rating rate > 1500 rps), consider creating a separate alert with a higher severity level that also triggers a PagerDuty incident.
6. Publishing the article on ubos.tech
UBOS uses a Markdown‑to‑HTML pipeline, but you can paste the HTML directly into the CMS editor. Follow these steps:
- Log in to the UBOS admin portal.
- Navigate to Content > New Post.
- Select HTML mode and paste the entire
<body>block. - Set the Meta Title to “Step‑by‑Step Guide: Grafana Dashboard for OpenClaw Rating‑API CRDT Metrics”.
- Enter the primary keyword “Grafana OpenClaw CRDT dashboard” in the Meta Description field.
- Choose the appropriate Category (Developer Guides) and add tags:
Grafana,OpenClaw,Prometheus,CRDT,Monitoring. - Click Publish. The article will be indexed by UBOS’s SEO engine and become searchable by AI assistants.
7. Conclusion
By integrating Prometheus with Grafana, you gain real‑time visibility into OpenClaw’s rating‑API edge CRDT metrics, enabling proactive troubleshooting and automated alerting. The steps outlined above—data source configuration, panel creation, visual tuning, and alert rule definition—form a repeatable pattern you can apply to any OpenClaw service.
Keep your dashboards version‑controlled (e.g., export JSON and store in Git) and regularly review alert thresholds as traffic patterns evolve. For deeper insights into the UBOS ecosystem, explore the UBOS platform overview.
External reference: For the original announcement of the rating‑API edge metrics, see the OpenClaw rating API announcement.