Conventions¶

File naming¶

Often, libraries that interact with a product will name their packages after the product. So if you name a file <PRODUCT_NAME>.py, and inside try to import the library of the same name, you will get import errors that will be difficult to diagnose.

Never name a Python file the same as the integration's name.

Attribute naming¶

The base classes may freely add new attributes for new features. Therefore to avoid collisions it is recommended that attribute names be prefixed with underscores, especially for names that are generic. For an example, see below.

Stateful checks¶

Since Agent v6, every instance of AgentCheck corresponds to a single YAML instance of an integration defined in the instances array of user configuration. As such, the instance argument the check method accepts is redundant and wasteful since you are parsing the same configuration at every run.

Parse configuration once and save the results.

class AwesomeCheck(AgentCheck):
    def __init__(self, name, init_config, instances):
        super(AwesomeCheck, self).__init__(name, init_config, instances)

        self._server = self.instance.get('server', '')
        self._port = int(self.instance.get('port', 8080))

        self._tags = list(self.instance.get('tags', []))
        self._tags.append('server:{}'.format(self._server))
        self._tags.append('port:{}'.format(self._port))

    def check(self, _):
        ...

class AwesomeCheck(AgentCheck):
    def check(self, instance):
        server = instance.get('server', '')
        port = int(instance.get('port', 8080))

        tags = list(instance.get('tags', []))
        tags.append('server:{}'.format(server))
        tags.append('port:{}'.format(port))
        ...