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Document distribution statistics.#9945

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jmcarp/document-distribution-estimates
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Document distribution statistics.#9945
jmcarp wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
jmcarp/document-distribution-estimates

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@jmcarp jmcarp commented Feb 27, 2026

Distributions have two kinds of statistics: histogram bucket counts, which can be converted from cumulative values to deltas by subtraction; and streaming estimates (min, max, quantiles, etc.), which can't. Because streaming estimates can't be subtracted, they always reflect values since the start of the series's epoch, and can't be used to examine a specific time range (e.g., the last hour). Users should probably use histogram statistics and not streaming statistics for monitoring purposes.

This patch updates the inline docs to clarify these differences and steer users toward histograms in most use cases.

Distributions have two kinds of statistics: histogram bucket counts, which can
be converted from cumulative values to deltas by subtraction; and streaming
estimates (min, max, quantiles, etc.), which can't. Because streaming estimates
can't be subtracted, they always reflect values since the start of the series's
epoch, and can't be used to examine a specific time range (e.g., the last
hour). Users should probably use histogram statistics and not streaming
statistics for monitoring purposes.

This patch updates the inline docs to clarify these differences and steer users
toward histograms in most use cases.
@jmcarp jmcarp requested a review from bnaecker February 27, 2026 22:33
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jmcarp commented Feb 27, 2026

I almost want to make the distribution streaming estimates private for now, or hide them behind a flag, because I think users probably shouldn't be using them for monitoring applications. For now, I'm just proposing a docs change, but we can also talk about hiding these somehow if useful.

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