Creating and managing metrics

Overview

This topic explains how to create, edit, archive, and delete metrics, and how to select which metric type to use with LaunchDarkly features, such as experiments and guarded rollouts.

When you create a metric, LaunchDarkly provides a data preview after you select an event key. Data previews give you immediate visibility into the events behind your metric so you can confirm that the right data is flowing, that filters are applied correctly, and that your aggregation method produces meaningful results. This reduces risk during metric creation and helps your team configure metrics you can trust more quickly, enabling confident experiments and rollouts.

Choose a metric type

You should choose a metric type that correctly measures the effect of a change on your customers or codebase. If you are unsure of what metric type to use, it may be helpful to begin by determining what kind of data you are trying to measure. For examples of common metrics and how to configure them, read Example metrics.

This table includes examples of different kinds of data you can measure with different metric types and common randomization unit context kind mappings:

When you create a metric, you must decide how you want to handle its metric and unit analysis. To learn more, read Metric analysis.

Create metrics

Click the following links to learn how to create each metric type:

• Clicked or tapped conversion metrics
• Custom conversion binary metrics
• Custom conversion count metrics
• Custom numeric metrics
• Page viewed conversion metrics

Preview event data

Metric data previews let you validate your metric configuration by showing recent event samples as you create or edit a custom metric. This section explains where previews are available, what they contain, and the states you may encounter.

Availability

Previews are available in two places:

• In the Create metric dialog for custom metrics.
• In the Metric details tab for custom metrics if LaunchDarkly has received recent event data.

Previews are not available for clicked or tapped metrics or for page viewed metrics.

When there is no event data:

• In the Create metric dialog, the preview displays “No event data available to preview” and includes a Learn more link.
• In the Metric details tab, the preview component does not appear.

Preview contents

Previews display a table with up to five of the most recent events LaunchDarkly received for the selected Event key. Each row displays:

• Timestamp: when the event occurred
• Context kinds: such as user or organization keys
• Event properties: the event JSON, truncated in the table. You can click the truncated version or expand the row to view the full JSON and copy it.

Preview states

The data preview can display different states depending on the event data available:

• Recent events shown: displays rows from the five most recent records.
• No recent events: displays “No event data available to preview.” You can still create the metric.
• Unable to load data: displays an error message if LaunchDarkly cannot retrieve data.

Example

Consider a custom numeric metric that measures purchase amount:

1. In the Event key field, select purchaseCompleted.
2. The preview displays the five most recent purchase events, including “Timestamp,” “Context kinds,” and “Event properties.”
3. Expand a row to view the full event details and copy them if needed.
4. The health check confirms that the event has been received recently and that all randomization units have events in the last 14 days.

This confirms that your instrumentation is correct and that your metric definition matches your measurement goals so you can connect it to an experiment or rollout with confidence.

Edit metrics

You can edit all of an existing metric’s settings except for its metric kind and metric key.

To edit a metric:

1. Navigate to the Metrics list.
2. Click the name of the metric you want to edit. The metric details screen opens.
3. Click the pencil icon in the right sidebar next to the field you want to edit. The “Edit metric” dialog appears.
4. Make the edits you want and click Save metric.

Archive metrics

Archiving a metric removes it from the metrics list, dashboards, and metric selectors, while preserving its definition and historical results. Archiving helps reduce clutter and maintain a clean workspace during guarded rollouts and experiments.

Archiving a metric creates a new version. This version reflects the archived state and preserves earlier versions for accurate experiment analysis and audit history. You can view a metric’s current and previous versions on its details page, each reflecting how the metric was configured when it was used.

You can archive a metric unless it is currently used in an active experiment, guarded rollout, or metric group. If the metric is in use, LaunchDarkly disables the archive option and displays a list of the connections.

To archive a metric:

1. Navigate to the Metrics list.
2. Next to the name of the metric you want to archive, click the three-dot overflow menu.
3. Click Archive metric. A confirmation dialog appears that lists the number of experiments, guarded rollouts, and metric groups the metric is connected to.
4. Click Archive.

By default, LaunchDarkly hides archived metrics from the metrics list, experiment setup screens, and metric selection menus. To view them, turn on the Show archived filter in the metrics list.

You can restore an archived metric at any time. When you restore a metric, it returns to active use and reappears in the metrics list, metric selectors, and dashboards.

To restore an archived metric:

1. Navigate to the Metrics list.
2. Turn on the Show archived filter.
3. Next to the name of the metric you want to restore, click the three-dot overflow menu.
4. Click Restore. A confirmation dialog appears.
5. Click Restore.

To archive or restore a metric, your role must include the updateArchived action for the metric resource.

View metric details

After you create a metric, you can view its configuration, connections, and recent activity from the metric details page.

To open a metric:

1. Navigate to the Metrics list.
2. Click the name of the metric you want to view.

The metric details page includes three tabs and a right-hand sidebar that summarize all available information about the metric.

Details tab

The Details tab displays configuration fields such as event key, metric type, definition, and success criteria. It also shows the Connections section, which lists any experiments, guarded rollouts, or metric groups using the metric.

To learn more about metric definition options, read Metric analysis.

Impact tab

The Impact tab lists the experiments that include the metric and shows current effect sizes, variation performance, and experiment status.

Activity tab

The Activity tab shows the most recent events associated with the metric, including timestamp, context key, and value. This helps you verify that your SDK instrumentation is working correctly. To learn more, read Metric events.

Sidebar information

The sidebar displays additional metadata about the metric, including:

• Description
• Maintainer
• Tags
• Sources
• Metric key

To analyze a metric’s results, read Metric analysis. To view or filter events associated with a metric, read Metric events.

Filter metrics

After you create a metric, you can optionally configure metric event filters to control which events are included in its analysis. This lets you focus the metric on specific context attributes or event properties, such as events where the variationKey is treatment or the country context attribute is CA.

To learn more, read Filtering custom metric events.

Delete metrics

Deleting a metric is irreversible. You cannot recover a metric after you delete it.

LaunchDarkly recommends archiving metrics instead of deleting them. Archiving preserves the metric’s historical data and audit trail, and removes it from selection menus and dashboards by default.

You can only delete a metric if:

• It is already archived
• It has never been used in any experiments or guarded releases

To delete a metric:

1. Navigate to the Metrics list.
2. Turn on the Show archived filter.
3. Click the name of the archived metric you want to delete. The metric details screen opens.
4. If the metric has never been used in an experiment or guarded release, click Delete metric. A confirmation dialog appears.
5. Click Delete metric.