docs: mention implicitly watched directories in documentation (promet…

…heus#14019) * docs: mention implicitly watched directories in documentation Signed-off-by: Rens Groothuijsen <[email protected]> * Add mention of atomic file renaming Co-authored-by: Ayoub Mrini <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Rens Groothuijsen <[email protected]> --------- Signed-off-by: Rens Groothuijsen <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayoub Mrini <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Björn Rabenstein <[email protected]>
caozhangni · Jun 18, 2024 · 1c3f322 · 1c3f322
1 parent fd1a89b
commit 1c3f322
Showing 1 changed file with 10 additions and 1 deletion.
diff --git a/docs/configuration/configuration.md b/docs/configuration/configuration.md
@@ -1608,7 +1608,16 @@ and serves as an interface to plug in custom service discovery mechanisms.
 
 It reads a set of files containing a list of zero or more
 `<static_config>`s. Changes to all defined files are detected via disk watches
-and applied immediately. Files may be provided in YAML or JSON format. Only
+and applied immediately. 
+
+While those individual files are watched for changes,
+the parent directory is also watched implicitly. This is to handle [atomic
+renaming](https://github.com/fsnotify/fsnotify/blob/c1467c02fba575afdb5f4201072ab8403bbf00f4/README.md?plain=1#L128) efficiently and to detect new files that match the configured globs.
+This may cause issues if the parent directory contains a large number of other files,
+as each of these files will be watched too, even though the events related
+to them are not relevant.
+
+Files may be provided in YAML or JSON format. Only
 changes resulting in well-formed target groups are applied.
 
 Files must contain a list of static configs, using these formats: