# prometheus/client_golang

Prometheus instrumentation library for Go applications

Repository: https://github.com/prometheus/client_golang
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/client_golang
Homepage: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/prometheus/client_golang
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-20T15:34:15+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 93/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 82, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4968, "days_push": 13, "days_rel": 40, "gap_med": 31.0, "n_releases_24m": 11}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6020, forks 1308 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:34.326868+00:00)

## What it is
The official Go client library for Prometheus, providing APIs for instrumenting application code with metrics and for querying the Prometheus HTTP API. It supports counters, gauges, histograms, and summaries, and can export metrics via OpenTelemetry OTLP.

## Use cases
- instrument a Go application with Prometheus metrics
- expose counters and histograms from a Go HTTP server
- query Prometheus data from a Go program
- export Go app metrics via OpenTelemetry OTLP
- add custom business metrics to a Go microservice

## When to choose
- you need standard Prometheus metrics instrumentation in Go
- you want the official, widely adopted Prometheus client
- you need to bridge Prometheus metrics into OpenTelemetry pipelines

## When to avoid
- you are instrumenting a non-Go language (use the language-specific client)
- you need a full metrics collection and storage system (use Prometheus server itself)
- you rely on the HTTP API client and need strict API stability guarantees

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: monitoring, sdk
- domain: monitoring, developer-tools, backend
- platform: go, cross-platform
- tags: prometheus, metrics, instrumentation, opentelemetry, observability

## Member repositories
- prometheus/client_golang (main) score 93

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:34.326868+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:49:44.263844+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/prometheus/client_golang (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:34.326868+00:00, sha 0cf0fa5b2281)
  - homepage: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/prometheus/client_golang (fetched 2026-08-29T08:45:34.077982+00:00, sha 7a12bb7e687e)
  - site_page: https://pkg.go.dev/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:45:34.087354+00:00, sha 757852027879)
  - site_page: https://go.dev/project (fetched 2026-08-29T08:45:34.089550+00:00, sha d5ca00bb378b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.