# Queries, Alerts and Dashboards

This section is a quick start on how to define Queries, Alerts and Dashboards with the Baselime CLI.

Baselime is based on Observability as Code: defining your observability configurations as code, rather than point-and-click web UIs. Baselime entire platform is driven by YAML files that you can track in your version control.

Create a .baselime folder in the root of your project folder, and use it to define queries, alerts and dashboards.

 terminal
baselime init

You can use the CLI to apply your observability configurations.

 terminal
baselime apply

# Queries

You can create queries using any YAML file in the .baselime folder.

 .baselime/demo.yml
lambda-duration:
  type: query
  properties:
    name: duration of the lambda execution
    description: how long does it take to execute the lambda function?
    parameters:
      dataset: logs
      calculations:
        - MAX(@duration)
        - MIN(@duration)
        - P99(@duration)
  response-time:
    description: how longs does the handler take to process a request?
    parameters:
      dataset: logs
      calculations:
        - MAX(extra.duration)
        - MIN(extra.duration)
        - P99(extra.duration)
      filters:
        - message = RESPONSE

# Channels

You can create channels that are destinations where Baselime can send messages. For instances, messages when an alert is trigerred.

 .baselime/demo.yml
developers:
  type: channel
  properties:
    type: email
    targets:
      - mail1@mail.com
      - mail2@mail.com 

# Alerts

You can create an alert based on queries. You can reference the query and the channels with the !ref function.

For instance, this alert will check the results of a query lambda-duration on a 5 minutes frequency, querying data for the past 5 minutes, and if the result of the query exceed a threshold, it will send a message to the channels specified.

 .baselime/demo.yml
critical-response-time:
  type: alert
  properties:
    name: It takes too long to respond to requests
    parameters:
      query: !ref lambda-duration
      threshold: "> 2000"
      frequency: 5
      duration: 5
    channels:
      - !ref developers 

# Charts

Baselime empowers you to create dynamic charts to display the results of queries.

 .baselime/demo.yml
lambda-duration-chart:
  type: chart
  properties:
    type: timeseries
    name: The response time of the Lamdba functions
    parameters:
      query: !ref lambda-duration
      duration: 15

# Dashboards

A dashboard is a collection of charts that can be used to monitor the health of an sub-set of an application.

 .baselime/demo.yml
main-dashboard:
  type: dashboard
  properties:
    name: Main dashboard
    charts:
      - !ref lambda-duration-chart