What does the evaluation_interval parameter in the Prometheus configuration control?

Theevaluation_intervalparameter defines how frequently Prometheusevaluates its recording and alerting rules. It determines the schedule at which the rule engine runs, checking whether alert conditions are met and generating new time series for recording rules.

For example, setting:

global:

evaluation_interval: 30s

means Prometheus evaluates all configured rules every 30 seconds. This setting differs from scrape_interval, which controls how often Prometheus collects data from targets.

Having a proper evaluation interval ensures alerting latency is balanced with system performance.