﻿---
title: Naming Conventions
description: When creating events, use the following conventions for field names and abbreviations. Use the following naming conventions for field names: All fields...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/2856/extend/beats/event-conventions
products:
  - Beats
applies_to:
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Naming Conventions
When creating events, use the following conventions for field names and abbreviations.

## Field Names

Use the following naming conventions for field names:
- All fields must be lower case.
- Use snake case (underscores) for combining words.
- Group related fields into subdocuments by using dot (.) notation. Groups typically have common prefixes. For example, if you have fields called `CPULoad` and `CPUSystem` in a service, you would convert them into `cpu.load` and `cpu.system` in the event.
- Avoid repeating the namespace in field names. If a word or abbreviation appears in the namespace, it’s not needed in the field name. For example, instead of `cpu.cpu_load`, use `cpu.load`.
- Use [units suffix](#units) when the metric matches one of the known units.
- Use [standardised names](#abbreviations) and avoid using abbreviations that aren’t commonly known.
- Organise the documents from general to specific to allow for namespacing. The type, such as `.pct`, should always be last. For example, `system.core.user.pct`.
- If two fields are the same, but with different units, remove the less granular one. For example, include `timeout.sec`, but don’t include `timeout.min`. If a less granular value is required, you can calculate it later.
- If a field name matches the namespace used for nested fields, add `.value` to the field name. For example, instead of:
  ```yaml
  workers
  workers.busy
  workers.idle
  ```
  Use:
  ```yaml
  workers.value
  workers.busy
  workers.idle
  ```
- Do not use dots (.) in individual field names. Dots are reserved for grouping related fields into subdocuments.
- Use singular and plural names properly to reflect the field content. For example, use `requests_per_sec` rather than `request_per_sec`.


## Units

These are well-known suffixes to represent units of stored values, use them as a dotted suffix when possible. For example `system.memory.used.bytes` or `system.diskio.read.count`:

| Suffix | Units        |
|--------|--------------|
| count  | item count   |
| pct    | percentage   |
| day    | days         |
| sec    | seconds      |
| ms     | millisecond  |
| us     | microseconds |
| ns     | nanoseconds  |
| bytes  | bytes        |
| mb     | megabytes    |


## Standardised Names

Here is a list of standardised names and units that are used across all Beats:

| Use…       | Instead of… |
|------------|-------------|
| avg        | average     |
| connection | conn        |
| max        | maximum     |
| min        | minimum     |
| request    | req         |
| msg        | message     |