TopolearnTime series is the default visualization and the one you will tune most; its options decide whether a graph is readable at a glance.
The Time series visualization draws every series the query returns against time. Its main option groups:
- Graph styles: lines, bars or points; line width and interpolation (linear, smooth, step before/after, the right choice for counters that change in steps); fill opacity and gradient; show points auto/always/never.
- Stack series: off, normal or 100%. Stacking only makes sense when the series add up to a meaningful total, like requests by status; never stack latencies.
- Connect null values and Disconnect values: by default a gap in data is drawn as a gap, which is usually what you want, since it reveals missing scrapes.
- Axis: placement left/right, soft min and max (axis grows beyond them if data does), log scale, and centered zero. Overrides let one series use the right axis, for example a request count next to a latency.
- Thresholds can be drawn as lines or filled regions, which gives a visual SLO line.
The legend has a mode (list, table, hidden), a placement (bottom, right) and values: calculations such as Last, Max, Mean and Total appended per series, sortable in table mode. Clicking a series name isolates it; Ctrl/Cmd-click adds more. Legend templates such as {{instance}} (set on the query) decide the names.
Tooltip mode is single, all or hidden; in all mode you can sort by value, which is handy with many series. The dashboard-level Graph tooltip setting (Settings, General) switches on a shared crosshair or shared tooltip across every panel, so hovering one graph marks the same moment on all of them.
Example
{
"type": "timeseries",
"title": "Requests by status",
"options": {
"legend": {"displayMode": "table", "placement": "right",
"calcs": ["mean", "max", "lastNotNull"]},
"tooltip": {"mode": "multi", "sort": "desc"}
},
"fieldConfig": {
"defaults": {
"unit": "reqps",
"custom": {
"drawStyle": "line", "lineInterpolation": "linear", "lineWidth": 1,
"fillOpacity": 20, "stacking": {"mode": "normal"},
"spanNulls": false, "axisSoftMin": 0
}
},
"overrides": [
{"matcher": {"id": "byRegexp", "options": "5.."},
"properties": [{"id": "color", "value": {"mode": "fixed", "fixedColor": "red"}}]}
]
}
}Remember
- Stack only series that add up; keep gaps for missing data
- Legend table mode with Last/Max/Mean turns a graph into a summary
- Shared crosshair aligns hover across all panels
Watch out for
- Switching on Connect null values everywhere, which hides scrape gaps and outages as smooth lines.