Data requirements and limits for custom event data

Payload

Total maximum size or length: 1MB (10^6 bytes) maximum per POST. We highly recommend using compression.

The payload must be encoded as UTF-8.

The Event API has additional HTTP rate limits.

Attribute data types

Attribute values can be either a string or a numeric integer or float. For information about formatting date and time data, see Custom date/time.

Attribute limits

Maximum length of attribute name: 255 characters.

Maximum length of custom attribute values:

• For events sent via Event API: 4096 characters

• For events sent via agents: 255 characters

  Maximum total attributes per event: 254. Exception: If you use an APM agent API, the max is 64.

  Maximum total attributes per event type: 48,000.

  Important

  Charts may only display the first 255 characters of attribute values. For complete attribute values, use the JSON chart type or Query API.

Naming syntax for events and attributes

Event names can be a combination of alphanumeric characters, colons (:), and underscores (_). Attribute names can include those as well as periods (.) and forward slashes (/).

We recommend starting names with a letter: if it starts with something else, you'll need to put backticks around the name when querying. For more on when backticks are required in a query, see NRQL reference.

Do not use words reserved for use by NRQL.

Maximum length of event name: 255 characters.

Null values

The database does not store any data with a null value.

accountId

This is a reserved attribute name. If it's included, it will be dropped during ingest.

appId

Value must be an integer. If it is not an integer, the attribute name and value will be dropped during ingest.

eventType

The event type as stored in New Relic. New Relic agents and scripts normally report this as eventType. Can be a combination of alphanumeric characters, colons (:), and underscores (_). Be sure to review the prohibited eventType values and eventType limits.

Prohibited eventType values

For your eventType value, avoid using:

• Metric, MetricRaw, and strings prefixed with Metric[0-9] (such as Metric2 or Metric1Minute).

• Entity, EntityUpdate, and strings prefixed with Entity[0-9] (such as Entity2 or Entity1HOUR).

• EntityRelationship, RelationshipUpdate, and strings prefixed with Relationship[0-9] (such as Relationship2 or Relationship1HOUR)

• Public_ and strings prefixed with Public_.

  These event types are reserved for use by New Relic. Events passed in with these eventType values will be dropped.

timestamp

Must be a Unix epoch timestamp. You can define timestamps either in seconds or in milliseconds. It must be +/-1 day (24 hours) of the current time on the server.

Log forwarding terms

The following keys are reserved by the infrastructure agent's log forwarding feature: entity.guid, log, hostname, plugin.type, fb.input. If used, they are dropped during ingest and a warning is added to the logs.

NRQL syntax terms

If you need to use NRQL syntax terms as attribute names, including dotted attributes, they must be enclosed in backticks; for example, `LIMIT` or `consumer.offset`. Otherwise, avoid using these reserved words:

ago, and, as, auto,

begin, begintime,

compare,

day, days,

end, endtime, explain,

facet, from,

hour, hours,

in, is,

like, limit,

minute, minutes, month, months,

not, null,

offset, or,

raw,

second, seconds, select, since,

timeseries,

until,

week, weeks, where, with