SLI menus and SLO templates

Choose Create SLO → Measurement → Start from a template in the portal.

• Select a category and SLI, inspect its eligible and good events, then choose Use template. This replaces the unsaved measurement settings.
• Adapt the metric, labels, observation point, target and window, then use Verify telemetry and plan SLO before reviewing and applying.
• Built-in templates ship with Nines and work without installation or a lockfile. Administrators can extend the same catalog with versioned SLO extensions, including typed recipe inputs, evaluation contracts and policy presets.
• The shipped catalog has six categories:

• Templates are starting points, not discovered telemetry.
  • Metric names, label values, 99% targets, thresholds and rolling windows are illustrative.
  • Built-in template drafts use lifecycle: experimental and no alert policies.
  • Installed extensions can include reviewed policy presets; experimental lifecycle suppresses their paging until explicitly promoted.
  • They can produce recording rules, but do not introduce a paging commitment.
  • Set justified targets, add reviewed burn policies and promote the lifecycle when your measurement is ready.

Use the CLI without a server

nines --offline templates list
nines --offline templates list --category agent
nines --offline templates show agent-task-completion
nines --offline templates generate agent-task-completion \
  --name support-completion --service support-agent --source production \
  --out support-completion.slo.yaml
nines --offline validate -f support-completion.slo.yaml
nines --offline rules generate -f support-completion.slo.yaml --tenant support

• generate prints native nines.dev/v1alpha1 ServiceLevelObjective YAML by default. --out writes a new file and refuses to overwrite. --agent emits a structured draft receipt containing the manifest, YAML, template ID/revision/digest, manifest digest, warnings and telemetryVerified: false. --output yaml emits that receipt as YAML; omit it for bare SLO YAML.

Use a values file to set targets and replace the example measurement. These are command inputs, not another persisted resource or DSL:

name: support-completion
project: customer-support
service: support-agent
source: production
target: 0.98
windowSeconds: 604800
stepSeconds: 60
measurement:
  type: availability
  metric: support_agent_tasks_total
  labels:
    service: support-agent
    environment: production
  successLabels:
    outcome: success
  countFrom: counter
  scrapeIntervalSeconds: 15
  observationPoint: One terminal outcome per logical task after internal retries, including failures, cancellations and timeouts.

nines --offline --agent templates generate agent-task-completion \
  --values task-values.yaml

• A supplied measurement replaces the complete example measurement. Name/project/service/source flags override corresponding values-file fields. When only --service is supplied, the example service population label follows it; a complete supplied measurement retains its explicit label filters.

Connected clients and agents

• The server exposes tenant-authenticated reads and deterministic rendering:

• GET /api/slo-templates?category=agent
• GET /api/slo-templates/agent-task-completion
• POST /api/slo-templates/agent-task-completion/render with template values as JSON.
• Viewer and agent roles can render drafts without write permissions.
  • Go clients provide SLOTemplates, SLOTemplate and RenderSLOTemplate.
  • The read-only MCP tools are list_slo_templates and render_slo_template; tool calls cannot override tenant, endpoints, credentials or deployment destinations.
  • Neither rendering nor choosing a template calls a model, verifies telemetry, saves an SLO or deploys rules.
• The built-in offline catalog belongs to the installed CLI version, extended by its explicit --extension-lock.
  • The connected catalog belongs to the server version and administrator-installed tenant extensions.
  • Compare template digests when reproducing a draft across versions.
  • Templates have their own revision and content digest; subsequent SLO edits use the existing SLO revision history.
  • Save the draft receipt with review artifacts if you need template provenance; rendering alone does not persist it in SLO history.

Templates in intent conversations

• Model-assisted intent preparation can discover built-ins and installed tenant extensions with list_slo_templates, then propose an inline measurement with render_slo_template.
  • Start with a typed outcome, target, rolling window and pinned scope, or let the drafting adapter extract these from explicit user text.
  • The model uses the selected template digest and typed values; it cannot install extensions, switch tenant/source/population, overwrite an existing measurement or confirm its own choice.
• Only the proposed measurement is adopted.
  • Template targets, rolling windows, quality presets and burn policies do not replace the typed goal.
  • When step or lifecycle is unspecified, the draft uses the recipe's validated step and experimental lifecycle. Explicit goal commitments remain unchanged.
  • The ordinary template renderer and operator renderer continue to render complete recipe presets for direct authoring.
• The worker verifies telemetry through find_measurements and pauses for an owner/editor to confirm the exact measurement digest.
  • After confirmation, deterministic compilation, optional historical validation, independent approval and reviewed apply follow the existing flow.
  • Guided preparation remains deterministic and does not automatically select a recipe.
• The conversation shows the template ID/revision/digest and extension version/artifact digest when applicable.
  • Selection is recorded in the audit journal and frozen into recommendation evidence.
  • Manual goal edits clear the active template attribution and confirmation; earlier run receipts and reviewed proposals remain available.
  • A catalog digest is pinned per model run.
  • Catalog changes stop unfinished runs with template_catalog_changed; an already-rendered and reviewed definition has no registry dependency.
• Discovery is paginated and bounded.
  • Oversized recipe schemas require the manual measurement editor.
  • Recipe descriptions, rubrics and illustrative metrics are untrusted data, not evidence of instrumentation or instructions to change tools.
  • The worker retains its existing six-model-call and six-tool-call budgets.
  • Synthetic workflow evaluations cover this route across provider protocols.
  • Run make selection-eval for template-selection contracts and use the live acceptance guide for your exact model.
  • The tested local Qwen 0.6B configuration failed the nine-case live corpus; passing server guardrails alone does not establish model suitability.
• Read agent, LLM and inference SLOs, measurement quality and model evaluations.