docs mvp

docs/sources/_index.md

@@ -2,8 +2,73 @@
 title: Explore Logs documentation
 description: Documentation for Explore Logs
 weight: 100
+hero:
+  title: Explore Logs
+  level: 1
+  width: 100
+  height: 100
+  description: Explore Logs automatically visualises insights from your Loki logs.
+cards:
+  title_class: pt-0 lh-1
+  items:
+    - title: Get started
+      href: ./get-started/
+      description: Install Explore Logs and take a tour of Explore Logs using your own data.
+      height: 24
+    - title: Labels and Fields
+      href: ./labels-and-fields/
+      description: Learn how Explore Logs uses labels and Fields to help you explore your Loki logs.
+      height: 24
+    - title: Log patterns
+      href: ./patterns/
+      description: Learn how you can use automatic log grouping to remove noise and find hard to locate logs.
+      height: 24
 ---
 
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}  
+Explore Logs is currently in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/). Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
 # Explore Logs documentation
 
-Placeholder for the Explore Logs documentation.
+## Welcome to our new logs experience
+
+Explore Logs automatically visualises insights from your Loki logs.
+
+You can:
+
+* Drill into your data using volume and text patterns.
+* Easily find logs and log volumes for all of your services.
+* Effortlessly filter logs based on their labels, fields, or patterns.
+* Uncover related logs and monitor changes over time.
+* Browse automatic visualizations of your log data based on its characteristics.
+* Do all of this without writing LogQL queries.
+
+![Screenshot of Explore Logs landing page](images/service_index.png)
+
+## Who is Explore Logs for?
+
+Explore Logs is for engineers of all levels of operational expertise. You no longer need to be an SRE wizard to get value from your logs.
+
+Traditionally, you'd need a deep understanding of your systems in order to get the most out of Loki. 
+
+With Explore Logs, you get the same powerful insights, by just clicking around and glancing at visualizations which are automatically generated from your data.
+
+## Explore
+
+Take a look around, and please 
+
+{{< card-grid key="cards" type="simple" >}}
+<br>
+If you're having trouble using Explore Logs, check out our [troubleshooting guides]({{< relref "troubleshooting" >}}).
+
+## Please share your feedback
+
+Our new experiences are in their early stages, and we'd love to hear your feedback.
+
+* You'll find a **Give feedback** link on the Explore Logs page in Grafana.
+* You can also [fill out this form](https://forms.gle/1sYWCTPvD72T1dPH9) to send your thoughts directly to the team building the apps.
+
+## What's next?
+
+Dive into the [Get started with Explore Logs]({{< relref "get-started" >}}) article to learn how to set up Explore Logs and take a tour of the feature on your own data. 

docs/sources/access/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+---
+description: Access and installation guide for Explore Logs.
+keywords:
+  - Logs
+  - Explore
+  - Labels
+  - Analysis
+menuTitle: Access or Install
+title: Access or install Explore Logs
+weight: 200
+---
+
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}  
+Explore Logs is currently in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/). Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+# Access Explore Logs
+
+To use Explore Logs on your own data, you can either access it in Grafana Cloud or install it in your own Grafana instance.
+
+{{< docs/play title="the Grafana Play site" url="https://play.grafana.org/a/grafana-lokiexplore-app/explore?var-ds=ddhr3fttaw8aod&var-patterns=&var-lineFilter=&var-logsFormat=" >}}
+
+## Access in Grafana Cloud
+
+Explore Logs is already available in Grafana Cloud.
+
+To access Explore Logs:
+
+1. Open your Grafana stack in a web browser
+1. In the main menu, select **Explore** > **Logs**.
+
+## Installation
+
+The following Loki and Grafana version and configuration are required:
+
+- Loki v3.0+
+  - `--pattern-ingester.enabled=true` for pattern ingestion
+  -  Volume endpoint enabled in Loki config:
+```yaml
+limits_config:
+  volume_enabled: true
+```
+- Grafana v11.0+
+
+### Install via environment variable
+
+If you want to [install the app in a docker container](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/setup-grafana/configure-docker/#install-plugins-in-the-docker-container), you need to configure the following environment variable:
+
+```
+GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=https://storage.googleapis.com/integration-artifacts/grafana-lokiexplore-app/grafana-lokiexplore-app-latest.zip;grafana-lokiexplore-app
+```
+
+## Install using grafana-cli
+
+You can install Explore Logs in your own Grafana instance using `grafana-cli`.
+
+Using `grafana-cli` run the following command:
+```sh
+grafana-cli --pluginUrl=https://storage.googleapis.com/integration-artifacts/grafana-lokiexplore-app/grafana-lokiexplore-app-latest.zip plugins install grafana-lokiexplore-app
+```
+
+### Test with Docker Compose
+
+You can test the app using the following command to spin up Grafana, Loki, and the Explore Logs App:  
+```sh
+curl -L https://github.com/grafana/explore-logs/raw/main/scripts/run.sh | sh
+```
+
+This will download the https://github.com/grafana/explore-logs/blob/main/scripts/run.sh file and execute it. 
+
+That shell file will download some configuration files into your `/tmp/explore-logs` directory and start the docker containers via `docker compose` from there.
+
+Once the docker container has started, navigate to `http://localhost:3000/a/grafana-lokiexplore-app/explore` to access Explore Logs.

docs/sources/get-started/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+---
+description: Get set up and take a tour of Explore Logs.
+keywords:
+  - Logs
+  - Explore
+  - Labels
+  - Analysis
+menuTitle: Get started
+title: Get started with Explore Logs
+weight: 200
+---
+
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}  
+Explore Logs is currently in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/). Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+# Get started with Explore Logs
+
+The best way to see what Explore Logs can do for you is to use it to explore your own data.
+
+{{< admonition type="note" >}}
+See also instructions for how to [access or install Explore Logs]({{< relref "../access" >}}).
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+## Guide
+
+We will walk through a simple step-by-step guide providing a tour of Explore Logs.
+
+While you are browsing around the app, look out for any unexpected spikes. Or perhaps one of your services is down and has stopped logging. Maybe you're seeing an increase in errors after a recent release.
+
+To take a tour of Explore Logs, follow these steps:
+
+1. In the main navigation bar click on **Explore** > **Logs**.
+2. You’ll land on the **Service overview page** showing time series and log visualizations for all the services in your selected Loki instance. ([No services?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-services" >}}))
+3. Change your data source with the drop-down on the top left, and select a recent time range.
+{{< admonition type="tip" >}}
+You can modify your time range in two ways:
+   - With the standard time range picker on the top right.
+   - By clicking and dragging the time range on any time series visualization.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+5. Services are shown based on the volume of logs, or you can search for the service by name.
+6. Click **Select** on the service you would like to explore.
+7. Click on the **Labels** tab to see visualizations of the log volume for each label. ([No labels?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-labels" >}}))
+8. Select a label to see the log volume for each value of that label. <br><br> Explore Logs shows you the volume of logs with specific Labels and fields. Learn more about [Labels and Fields]({{< relref "../labels-and-fields" >}}).<br><br>
+
+9. Select the **Fields** tab to see visualizations of the log volume for each Field. You can drill down in the same way.
+10. Click on the **Patterns** tab to see the log volume for each automatically detected pattern. <br><br> Log patterns allow you to work with groups of similar log lines. You can hide them if they're noise, or focus in on them if they're useful. Learn more about [Log Patterns]({{< relref "../patterns" >}}).
+
+### What do you think?
+
+Please [share your feedback](https://forms.gle/1sYWCTPvD72T1dPH9) and help make Explore Logs better.

docs/sources/labels-and-fields/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+description: Learn how breaking logs down by Labels and Fields can help you find the signal in the noise.
+keywords:
+  - Logs
+  - Explore
+  - Labels
+  - Analysis
+menuTitle: Labels and Fields
+title: Labels and Fields
+weight: 300
+---
+
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}  
+Explore Logs is currently in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/). Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+# Labels and Fields
+
+Explore Logs visualises log volumes for the labels attached to your log lines, and fields automatically extracted from the text of the line itself.
+
+A special `detected_level` label is added to all log lines where Loki assigns a level of the log line, including `debug`, `info`, `warn`, `error`, `fatal`, `critical`, `trace`, or `unknown` if no level could be determined.
+
+You can click **Select** on a Label or Field to access a breakdown of its values, seeing the log volumes visualized along the way.
+
+This experience is useful for understanding the traits of your system, and for spotting spikes or other changes.
+
+{{< admonition type="note" >}}
+The type of data being expressed in a label or field may require different treatments. For example, fields expressing `bytes` are visualized differently than other types of data. Please [share your feedback](https://forms.gle/1sYWCTPvD72T1dPH9) if you have suggestions for how to improve this experience.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+## Guide
+
+To explore labels with your own data, follow these steps:
+
+1. In the main menu, select **Explore** > **Logs**.
+1. Click the **Select** button for the **Service** you want to explore. ([No services?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-services" >}}))
+1. Click the **Labels** tab.
+1. Browse the labels detected for this service. ([No labels?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-labels" >}}))
+1. Look for an interesting label and click the **Select** button.
+
+You will see a selection of visualizations showing the volume of each one.
+
+You can repeat the same steps in the **Fields** tab to see fields that were extracted from your log lines.
+
+## What next?
+
+Learn about how [Log patterns]({{< relref "../patterns" >}}) can help you deal with different types of log lines in bulk.

docs/sources/patterns/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+---
+description: Use Log patterns to detect and analyze types of log lines.
+keywords:
+  - Logs
+  - Log Patterns
+  - Explore
+  - Patterns
+  - Drain
+  - Categorization
+  - Analysis
+menuTitle: Log patterns
+title: Log patterns
+weight: 400
+---
+
+{{< admonition type="caution" >}}  
+Explore Logs is currently in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/). Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+# Log patterns
+
+Log patterns allow you to work with groups of similar log lines. You can hide them if they're noise, or focus in on them if they're useful.
+
+Patterns are automatically extracted when your logs are ingested.
+
+The Explore Logs app shows you the patterns alongside their log volumes. From this view, you can investigate spikes and include or exclude those log lines from your view.
+
+Patterns are ephemeral and can change over time as your logging evolves.
+
+## More use cases
+
+Log patterns allow you to:
+
+* Browse the log volume over time of different types of logs.
+* Simplify log management by grouping similar log entries.
+* Enhance log searches by focusing on relevant patterns.
+* Improve troubleshooting efficiency by highlighting critical log lines.
+* Reduce storage requirements by minimizing log data.
+* Filter out noisy log lines during exploration.
+* Identify specific log lines for targeted analysis.
+
+## Guides
+
+We've outlined the steps you'll need to take to perform these common use cases.
+
+### Browse log volumes by type
+
+Explore Logs proactively visualizes your log volume data per detected pattern, broken down in various ways. At a glance you can immediately spot spikes or other changes.
+
+For example, if your HTTP service is suffering from a DDoS attack, the relevant graphs will clearly show the spikes. From here you can drill down to discover enough details about the attack to counter it.
+
+### Targetted analysis
+
+If you know the kind of log line you're looking for, Log patterns are an easy way to get everything else out of the way.
+
+To view only a specific set of patterns, perform the following steps:
+
+1. In the main menu, select **Explore** > **Logs**.
+2. Select the relevant **Service**. ([No services?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-services" >}}))
+3. Click the **Patterns** tab.
+4. Identify a pattern that matches the type of logs you're interested in viewing. ([No patterns?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-patterns" >}}))
+5. Click the **Include** button.
+6. Return to the **Logs** tab and notice the filtered view.
+
+### Hide noisy log lines
+
+To hide noisy log lines, perform the following steps:
+
+1. In the main menu, select **Explore** > **Logs**.
+2. Select the relevant **Service**. ([No services?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-services" >}}))
+3. Open the **Patterns** tab.
+4. Identify a pattern that represents noise in the logs that you want to remove. ([No patterns?]({{< relref "../troubleshooting/#there-are-no-patterns" >}}))
+5. Click the **Exclude** button to exclude that pattern.
+6. Return to the **Logs** tab and notice the noisy pattern has been removed.
+
+You can repeat steps 4 and 5 to exclude multiple patterns.
+
+## Pattern extraction
+
+Loki extracts patterns from a stream of log lines.
+
+For example, if your service logs lines like this:
+
+```
+duration=255ms trace_id=abc001 GET /path/to/endpoint/2
+user loaded: 25666
+user loaded: 14544
+duration=255ms trace_id=abc002 POST /path/to/endpoint/2
+user loaded: 25666
+duration=355ms trace_id=abc003 GET /path/to/endpoint/1
+duration=355ms trace_id=abc004 POST /path/to/endpoint/1
+duration=255ms trace_id=abc005 POST /path/to/endpoint/2
+user loaded: 89255
+duration=4244ms trace_id=abc006 GET /path/to/endpoint/1
+user loaded: 25666
+duration=255ms trace_id=abc007 GET /path/to/endpoint/2
+```
+
+Two patterns would emerge where the static tokens are preserved literally, and dynamic values are turned into placeholders:
+
+Pattern 1: `duration=<_> trace_id=<_> <_> /path/to/endpoint/<_>`
+
+Pattern 2: `user loaded: <_>`
+
+{{< admonition type="note" >}}
+Since Loki 3.0, you can make queries using this simplified template format which is much faster than using regex.
+{{< /admonition >}}
+
+## What next?
+
+See how Explore Logs works on your own data by following our [Get started guide]({{< relref "../get-started" >}}).