queryRange

QueryRange is a term used to describe the process or endpoint for performing range queries on time series data. It is commonly associated with the Prometheus ecosystem, where a range query is executed over a specified time window to retrieve historical values of one or more time series. In many client libraries and documentation, the operation is referred to as queryRange, even though the underlying HTTP endpoint in Prometheus is typically exposed as query_range.

In practice, queryRange is implemented as a range query against a data source that supports PromQL. A request generally includes a PromQL expression to evaluate (the query), a start time, an end time, and a step size that defines the resolution of the returned data. The step determines how often samples are produced within the requested time range. Some deployments also support a timeout parameter to bound the duration of the query.

The response of a queryRange request is a structured data payload. It typically contains a status indicator and a data object. For Prometheus-style range queries, the data includes a resultType (often matrix) and a result array. Each element in the result represents a time series, including a metric label set and a sequence of time-value pairs (timestamps and values) that cover the specified range at the requested resolution.

Common use cases for queryRange include charting and analysis in dashboards, performance monitoring, and historical trend analysis. It contrasts with instant queries, which fetch data for a single point in time, whereas queryRange retrieves values across a continuous interval.

See also: the Prometheus query_range API endpoint, PromQL range vectors, and dashboarding tools that consume range query data.