---
title: Envoy Statistics
description: Fine-grained control of Envoy statistics.
weight: 10
aliases:
  - /help/ops/telemetry/envoy-stats
  - /docs/ops/telemetry/envoy-stats
---

The Envoy proxy keeps detailed statistics about network traffic.

Envoy's statistics only cover the traffic for a particular Envoy instance.  See
[Observability](/docs/tasks/observability/) for persistent per-service Istio telemetry.  The
statistics the Envoy proxies record can provide more information about specific pod instances.

To see the statistics for a pod:

{{< text bash >}}
$ kubectl exec $POD -c istio-proxy -- pilot-agent request GET stats
{{< /text >}}

See [the Envoy documentation](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/configuration/upstream/cluster_manager/cluster_stats)
for an explanation of the data recorded.

By default, Istio configures Envoy to record minimal statistics.  The default collection
keys are:

- `cluster_manager`
- `listener_manager`
- `http_mixer_filter`
- `tcp_mixer_filter`
- `server`
- `cluster.xds-grpc`

To see the Envoy settings for statistics data collection use
[`istioctl proxy-config bootstrap`](/docs/reference/commands/istioctl/#istioctl-proxy-config-bootstrap) and follow the
[deep dive into Envoy configuration](/docs/ops/diagnostic-tools/proxy-cmd/#deep-dive-into-envoy-configuration).
Envoy only collects statistical data on items matching the `inclusion_list` within
the `stats_matcher` JSON element.

To Configure Envoy to record statistics for inbound or outbound traffic, add the
`sidecar.istio.io/statsInclusionPrefixes` annotation to the pod template in the Kubernetes `Deployment`.
Add the `cluster.outbound` prefix to gather data about outbound traffic activity and circuit breaking.
To gather data on inbound traffic, add the `listener` prefix.  The sample
[fortio-deploy.yaml]({{< github_file>}}/samples/httpbin/sample-client/fortio-deploy.yaml)
shows use of `sidecar.istio.io/statsInclusionPrefixes` with the `cluster.outbound` prefix.

You can override the Envoy defaults to gather less data than usual.  Use
`sidecar.istio.io/statsInclusionPrefixes: cluster_manager,listener_manager`
to collect the least statistics possible.
