Explore documentation
  1. Welcome to Telemetry👋
  2. Quick start guide
  3. Log libraries
    1. Programming languages
    2. Cloud platforms
    3. Web servers & Load balancers
    4. Operating systems
    5. Databases & Message queues
    6. Containers & Clusters
    7. HTTP REST API
  4. Metrics
    1. Vector (Recommended)
    2. Prometheus (push)
    3. Prometheus (scrape)
    4. Datadog Agent
    5. OpenTelemetry
  5. Log Forwarding
    1. Vector (Recommended)
    2. Fluent Bit
    3. Logstash
    4. Fluentd
    5. Filebeat
    6. Syslog
  6. Dashboards
    1. Getting started
    2. Converting logs to metrics
    3. SQL queries
    4. Simplified PromQL
    5. Alerts
    6. How do we bill for metrics?
    7. Transforming with JavaScript
  7. Using Logs
    1. Querying data in Better Stack
    2. String + JSON format
    3. Formatting logs
    4. Live tail query language
    5. Explore logs with SQL
    6. AWS S3-compatible archive
  8. Telemetry API
    1. Get started with Telemetry API
    2. Sources API
      1. List all existing sources GET
      2. Get a single source GET
      3. Create a source POST
      4. Update a source PATCH
      5. Delete an existing source DELETE
      6. Sources API response parameters
    3. Metrics API
    4. Query API

Create a source

Returns a newly created source.

POST https://telemetry.betterstack.com/api/v1/sources

Headers

Authorization
required string

Bearer $TOKEN

Body parameters

team_name
string

Required if using global API token to specify the team which should own the resource

name
required string

Source name

ingesting_paused
boolean

Enable or disable ingesting for this source

platform
required string

Source platform.
The currently supported platforms are:
- apache2
- aws_cloudwatch
- aws_ecs
- aws_elb
- aws_fargate
- cloudflare_logpush
- cloudflare_worker
- datadog_agent
- docker
- dokku
- dotnet
- elasticsearch
- erlang
- filebeat
- flights
- fluentbit
- fluentd
- fly_io
- go
- haproxy
- heroku
- http
- java
- javascript
- kubernetes
- logstash
- minio
- mongodb
- mysql
- nginx
- open_telemetry
- php
- postgresql
- prometheus
- prometheus_scrape
- python
- rabbitmq
- redis
- render
- rsyslog
- ruby
- syslog-ng
- traefik
- ubuntu
- vector
- vercel_integration
- flights

live_tail_pattern
string

Freeform text template for formatting Live tail output with columns wrapped in {column} brackets. Example: "PID: {message_json.pid} {level} {message}"

logs_retention
integer

Data retention for logs in days. There might be additional charges for longer retention.

metrics_retention
integer

Data retention for metrics in days. There might be additional charges for longer retention.

scrape_urls
array

URLs to scrape by prometheus_scrape platform and similar.

scrape_frequency_secs
integer

How often to scrape the URLs for prometheus_scrape platform and similar. Permitted values are 15, 30, 60, 120 or 300.

scrape_request_headers
array

An array of request headers for prometheus_scrape platform and similar, with each object containing name and value fields.

scrape_request_basic_auth_user
string

Basic auth username for prometheus_scrape platform and similar.

scrape_request_basic_auth_password
string

Basic auth password for prometheus_scrape platform and similar.

200

The source was created

Response body

{
  "id": "95",
  "type": "source",
  "attributes": {
    "team_id": 123,
    "team_name": "Test team",
    "name": "Nginx",
    "table_name": "nginx",
    "platform": "nginx",
    "token": "FczKcxEhjEDE58dBX7XaeX1q",
    "ingesting_paused": false,
    "logs_retention": 7,
    "metrics_retention": 14,
    "live_tail_pattern": "{level} {host} {nginx.status} {nginx.method} {nginx.host} {nginx.path} {nginx.client} {nginx.agent} {message}",
    "created_at": "2021-05-27T12:30:41.695Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-06-11T14:00:50.756Z"
  }
}
422

Validation failed

Response body

{
  "errors": "Your plan doesn't support custom retention",
  "invalid_attributes": [
    "logs_retention",
    "metrics_retention"
  ]
}

Previous article

Get a single source

Next article

Update a source