generated: '2026-07-21'
method: derived
source: grpc/timber-observability.proto
api: Vector Observability API
notes: >-
  Vector's own programmable surface is a gRPC API (not REST/OpenAPI, not OAuth).
  Standards below describe the API surface itself; Vector's broad protocol
  interoperability as a data pipeline (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, StatsD, Syslog,
  Datadog agent, Fluent, Loki, etc.) is via its sources/sinks catalog, not its
  control API, and is listed separately as interop.
standards:
  - id: grpc
    conforms: true
    evidence: The Observability API is served over gRPC (proto3, published .proto in grpc/).
  - id: protobuf
    conforms: true
    evidence: Message schemas defined in proto3 (proto/vector/*.proto).
  - id: semver
    conforms: true
    evidence: Releases follow semantic versioning (pre-1.0).
  - id: oauth2
    conforms: false
    evidence: The API has no authentication of any kind.
  - id: openid-connect
    conforms: false
  - id: rfc9457-problem-details
    conforms: false
    evidence: gRPC status codes are used, not HTTP problem+json.
  - id: rfc9116-security-txt
    conforms: false
    evidence: No /.well-known/security.txt on vector.dev (404); disclosure is via SECURITY.md.
interop_protocols_supported_as_pipeline:
  note: >-
    These are source/sink integrations Vector speaks as a data pipeline, drawn
    from the components reference (https://vector.dev/docs/reference/configuration/),
    not conformance claims of the control API.
  protocols:
    - opentelemetry
    - prometheus
    - statsd
    - syslog
    - datadog-agent
    - fluent
    - loki
    - kafka
    - amqp
    - nats