---
title: 'Multi-instance integrations'
description: 'Configure multiple accounts, regions, or clusters per provider'
---

## Overview

Real deployments have multiple clusters, regions, teams, and accounts for the same provider — a prod and staging Grafana, two AWS accounts, three Kubernetes clusters. OpenSRE's integration model now supports multiple **named instances** per provider with **tags** for filtering, while remaining fully backward-compatible with existing single-instance configurations.

## Configuring multiple instances

There are two ways to configure multi-instance integrations.

### 1. Environment variable (JSON array)

Set `<SERVICE>_INSTANCES` to a JSON array. Each entry can use either a nested `credentials` object or a flat shape.

```bash
export GRAFANA_INSTANCES='[
  {"name":"prod", "tags":{"env":"prod"}, "endpoint":"https://prod.grafana.net", "api_key":"..."},
  {"name":"staging", "tags":{"env":"staging"}, "endpoint":"https://staging.grafana.net", "api_key":"..."}
]'
```

Supported env vars: `GRAFANA_INSTANCES`, `DD_INSTANCES`, `HONEYCOMB_INSTANCES`, `CORALOGIX_INSTANCES`, `AWS_INSTANCES`, `ARGOCD_INSTANCES`.

When `<SERVICE>_INSTANCES` is set, the legacy single-instance vars for that service (e.g. `GRAFANA_INSTANCE_URL`, `GRAFANA_READ_TOKEN`) are ignored. If the JSON is invalid the loader logs a warning and falls back to the legacy vars.

### 2. Store file (`~/.opensre/integrations.json`)

The store uses a v2 schema with multiple instances per record:

```json
{
  "version": 2,
  "integrations": [
    {
      "id": "grafana-prod-staging",
      "service": "grafana",
      "status": "active",
      "instances": [
        {"name": "prod", "tags": {"env": "prod"}, "credentials": {"endpoint": "...", "api_key": "..."}},
        {"name": "staging", "tags": {"env": "staging"}, "credentials": {"endpoint": "...", "api_key": "..."}}
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```

v1 stores are migrated automatically on first load — no manual action needed.

## Selecting a specific instance during an investigation

### By alert hint (Grafana, shipping now)

Alerts can carry a `grafana_instance` hint — either at the top level of the raw alert payload, or inside `annotations`:

```json
{
  "alert_source": "grafana",
  "grafana_instance": "staging",
  ...
}
```

When set, OpenSRE selects the matching instance. If the hint is absent or unknown, the default (first) instance is used.

### Programmatic selectors

```python
from integrations.selectors import (
    get_default_instance,
    get_instance_by_name,
    get_instances_by_tag,
    select_instance,
)

# Flat default (backward-compat shape)
default = get_default_instance(resolved_integrations, "grafana")

# By name
prod = get_instance_by_name(resolved_integrations, "grafana", "prod")

# By tag
prod_cluster = get_instances_by_tag(resolved_integrations, "grafana", "env", "prod")

# Either
picked = select_instance(resolved_integrations, "grafana", name="prod")
picked = select_instance(resolved_integrations, "grafana", tags={"env": "staging"})
```

## Backward compatibility

- v1 store files are migrated on load; version bumped from 1 to 2; structural fields (`id`, `service`, `status`) preserved at the top level
- Legacy env vars (`GRAFANA_INSTANCE_URL`, `DD_API_KEY`, etc.) continue to work unchanged
- `resolved_integrations[<service>]` still returns the flat config dict of the default (first) instance — no existing consumer code changes
- A sibling key `_all_<service>_instances` is published only when multiple instances exist (or an instance has a non-default name)
- Existing single-instance tests continue to pass without modification

## Current end-to-end provider support

| Provider | `<SERVICE>_INSTANCES` env | Classifier multi-instance | `detect_sources` selection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (via `grafana_instance` hint) |
| Datadog | ✅ | ✅ | Default instance only |
| AWS | ✅ | ✅ | Default instance only |
| Honeycomb | ✅ | ✅ | Default instance only |
| Coralogix | ✅ | ✅ | Default instance only |
| Argo CD | ✅ | ✅ | Default instance only |
| Others | — | Default instance only | Default instance only |

Providers without end-to-end selection fall back to the default (first) instance — identical behavior to before this feature.

## Known limitations

- Only Grafana honors an alert-provided `grafana_instance` hint in this release; extending per-provider selection is a follow-up.
- Operators must configure multi-instance via env vars or direct JSON edit; the CLI wizard is not yet instance-aware.
- `verify_integrations` currently validates only the default instance of a multi-instance record.
- When both the store and env vars configure the same service, the store still wins (existing precedence). To use multi-instance env vars, either remove the store entry for that service or add instances via the store directly.
