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Pyroscope Agent

Overview#

Pyroscope Agent records and aggregates what your application has been doing, then sends that data over to the Pyroscope Server.

deployment diagram

Supported platforms#

Pyroscope Agent can run on Linux, macOS, Windows and in Docker. Note that some integrations are OS-specific. Visit Integrations page for details.

Run modes#

Pyroscope Agent may be run interactively and as a service:

  • pyroscope exec spawns a new process and attaches configured profiler. Once pyroscope exec exits, the child process exits as well and vice-versa. This command may be used for testing, as a docker entrypoint, or as a systemd service unit command.

  • pyroscope connect attaches profiler to already running process specified by PID or operating system, if applicable (for example, ebpf integration).

  • pyroscope agent continuously tracks configured targets and attaches profilers to them. This command is only supported on Windows and it's primarily supposed to be run in the context of Windows Service Control Manager.

  • pyroscope adhoc profiles a process and saves the result as a file that can later be analyzed with the Adhoc view. This command is useful for interactive or ad-hoc profiling.

Refer to Configuration page to learn more about each mode and how to configure Pyroscop Agent.