starts

Input Stack: value: String key: String

⇨

Output Stack: Query

Select time series where the value for a tag key starts with the specified prefix string. This provides a more efficient alternative to regular expressions when you only need simple prefix matching. It performs exact prefix matching and is case-sensitive.

Parameters

• key: The tag key to check (e.g., name, nf.app)
• value: The prefix string that tag values must start with

Examples

Find all metrics whose name starts with "ssCpu":

name,ssCpu,:starts

When matching against sample data, the highlighted time series would be included:

Name	nf.app	nf.node
ssCpuUser	alerttest	i-0123
ssCpuSystem	alerttest	i-0123
ssCpuUser	nccp	i-0abc
ssCpuSystem	nccp	i-0abc
numRequests	nccp	i-0abc
ssCpuUser	api	i-0456

Related Operations

• :ends - Match by suffix instead of prefix
• :contains - Match by substring anywhere in the value
• :eq - Exact string matching
• :re - Full regular expression matching (more powerful but slower)
• :and / :or - Combine with other query conditions