# PVE Exporter Documentation

PVE Exporter periodically collects monitoring data from the Proxmox VE HTTP API
and stores the latest values in the Prometheus registry exposed at `/metrics`.

## Guides

- [Configuration reference](configuration.md) describes every YAML setting,
  API token permissions, and collector switch.
- [Metrics reference](metrics.md) lists exported metrics, labels, units, and
  numeric state mappings.
- [Prometheus alerting](alerting.md) provides a ready-to-use rule group,
  installation example, and collector requirements.
- [Operations and troubleshooting](operations.md) covers native and container
  deployment, endpoint failover, logging, security, and common errors.
- [Architecture and adding collectors](architecture.md) explains the collection
  flow and how the main packages fit together.

## Important behavior

- One exporter instance is intended for one standalone node or one PVE cluster.
- Multiple configured API hosts provide redundant access to that same cluster.
- Collection runs every `proxmox.interval` seconds independently of Prometheus
  scrapes.
- Collector label sets that stop receiving updates are removed after five
  minutes.
- The only application HTTP endpoint is `/metrics`.