While running a Prometheus server with no startup configuration can be good enough for local instances, it is advisable to configure a couple of basic command-line flags for any serious deployment.

At the time of writing, Prometheus has almost 30 command-line flags for tweaking several aspects of its operational configuration, grouped by the following namespaces: config, web, storage, rules, alertmanager, query, and log. The --help flag does a good job of describing most options, but it can be a bit terse in a few places, so we're going to highlight the ones that are either important for any deployment or whose function is not readily apparent.