Create extension YAML file

Your extension.yaml file defines the generic scope of your extension and is the core element of your extension package. It stores your environment configuration and is uploaded to your environment as a part of the extension ZIP package.

This topic describes the elements of the extension.yaml file applicable to any kind of extension from the Dynatrace Extensions 2.0 framework. For elements specific to particular data source types, see SNMP extension and WMI extension.

Schemas

When you create the extension.yaml file, make sure to rely on the schemas provided through the Extensions 2.0 API. We recommend that you use an editor supporting schema validation and snippets, which significantly simplifies extension.yaml editing. For example, use the Visual Studio Code YAML plugin.

To download Extensions 2.0 schemas:

Check available schema versions using the GET all schemas endpoint. Schema version relate to Dynatrace Cluster versions.

bash
curl -X GET "{env-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/extensions/schemas" \
-H "accept: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
-H "Authorization: Api-Token {api-token}"

Response:

json
{
   "versions": [
     "1.213.0",
     "1.215.0",
   ]
 }

Use the GET all files endpoint to list all available schemas for a specific Dynatrace version. For example:

bash
curl -X GET "{env-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/extensions/schemas/{dynatrace-version}" \
-H "accept: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
-H "Authorization: Api-Token {api-token}"

Response:

json
{
  "files": [
    "metric.metadata.schema.json",
    "topology.schema.json",
    "generic.types.schema.json",
    "generic.relationships.schema.json",
    "snmp.schema.json",
    "metric.schema.json",
    "wmi.schema.json",
    "extension.schema.json"
  ]
}

Use the GET a file endpoint to download a specific file in a specific version. For example, to download extension.schema.json, version 1.215:

json
curl -X GET "{env-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/extensions/schemas/1.215/extension.schema.json" \
-H "accept: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
-H "Authorization: Api-Token {api-token}"

Start extension YAML file

The extension YAML file starts with basic information about the extension. It also contains optional references to assets used by the extension.

name—the name of your extension. A custom extension name (an extension not developed by Dynatrace) must start with custom:. The string must comply with the metric ingestion protocol requirements for dimensions.
version—the version of your extension in major.minor.build format, such as 1.0.0. Your Dynatrace environment can store 10 extension versions, but only one can be active at the time.
minDynatraceVersion—the earliest Dynatrace version supported by the extension enclosed in quotes ("), such as "1.213".
author—the extension developer or company.
dashboards—the path to the dashboard definitions in the extension.zip archive relative to the extension YAML file. You can add up to 10 definitions.
alerts—the path to the custom events for alerting definitions in the extension.zip archive relative to the extension YAML file. You can add up to 10 definitions.

Groups and subgroups

You can organize your metrics into groups and subgroups to assign metrics within a group to specific dimensions or feature sets, or control the interval at which they're reported at a group level.

For each extension, you can define 10 groups, and each group can contain 10 subgroups.

For example:

yaml
name: com.dynatrace.cisco-catalyst-health
version: 1.0.0
minDynatraceVersion: "1.999"
author:
  name: Joe Doe

snmp:
  - group: Device health
    interval: 1m
    dimensions:
      - key: device.name
        value: oid:1.3.6.1.2.1.1.5.0
      - key: device.contact
        value: oid:1.3.6.1.2.1.1.4.0

    subgroups:
      - subgroup: Device health (Temperature)
        table: true
        dimensions:
          - key: envmon.temperature.desc
            value: oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.13.1.3.1.2
        metrics:
          - key: envmon.temperature.value
            value: oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.13.1.3.1.3
            type: gauge

Interval

The interval at which the data measurement will be taken. You can define intervals at the group, subgroup, or individual metric level. You can define intervals with the granularity of one minute (for example, 5m). The maximum interval is 2880m (2 days, 48 hours).

Metrics

You can define metrics at the extension, group, and subgroup level. The details on how way you extract metric values vary depending on data source type. See:

SNMP
WMI

Best practices for metric keys

The metrics you ingest into Dynatrace using your extension are just some of the thousands of metrics, built-in and custom, processed by Dynatrace. To make your metrics keys unique and easy to identify in Dynatrace, the best practice is to prefix the metric name with the extension name. This guarantees that the metric key is unique and you can easily appoint a metric to a particular extension in your environment.

Dimensions

You can define a dimension at the metric, group, and subgroup level. The details on how you extract dimension values varies depending on data source type. See:

SNMP
WMI

Variables

If you want to make your extension customizable with the monitoring configuration, you can use variables that will be replaced by values passed from the monitoring configuration. You can use variables directly as the dimension value or with filters. To use variables, you must first declare them in your extension YAML file:

yaml
vars:
 - id: ifNameFilter
   displayName: Pattern matching interfaces for which metrics should be queried
   type: pattern
 - id: ext.activationtag
   displayName: Extension activation tag
   type: pattern

Filters

When extracting the dimension value, you can add filtering logic that will result in reporting only the dimensions matching the filtering criteria.

Define the filter in the monitoring configuration and pass it to the extension as a variable, giving you full flexibility without the need to modify the extension
```
yaml
filter: var:variableFromActivationConfig
```
Limit dimensions reporting to values that start with the string of your choice
```
yaml
filter: const:$prefix(xyz)
```
Limit dimensions reporting to values that end with the string of your choice
```
yaml
filter: const:$suffix(xyz)
```
Filter dimensions only to values containing a string of your choice
```
yaml
filter: const:$contains(xyz)
```
Filter dimensions only to values that are equal to the string of your choice
```
yaml
filter: const:$eq(xyz)
```