Response Time Tracking

Automatic response time measurement and historical graphs for all monitored endpoints

Upptime automatically tracks and visualizes response times for all your monitored endpoints. Response time data is recorded, committed to git, and displayed as interactive graphs on your status page.

How It Works

Response time tracking runs on a separate workflow from uptime checks:

.github/workflows/response-time.yml

name: Response Time CI
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 23 * * *"
  repository_dispatch:
    types: [response_time]
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  release:
    name: Check status
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
          token: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT || github.token }}
      - name: Update response time
        uses: upptime/uptime-monitor@v1.41.0
        with:
          command: "response-time"
        env:
          GH_PAT: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT || github.token }}
          SECRETS_CONTEXT: ${{ toJson(secrets) }}

Response times are recorded once per day at 11:00 PM UTC by default. This is separate from the uptime checks that run every 5 minutes.

What Gets Measured

For each monitored endpoint, Upptime measures:

• Total response time (in milliseconds)
• DNS lookup time
• TCP connection time
• TLS handshake time (for HTTPS)
• Time to first byte (TTFB)
• Download time

The recorded response time is the total time from request start to complete response.

Response Time Storage

History Files

Each check updates the site’s history file:

history/google.yml

url: https://www.google.com
status: up
code: 200
responseTime: 131
lastUpdated: 2026-03-02T23:16:08.212Z
startTime: 2020-08-10T07:54:39.000Z
generator: Upptime <https://github.com/upptime/upptime>

API Endpoints

Aggregated data is stored as JSON for different time periods:

Daily

api/google/response-time-day.json

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "label": "response time 24h",
  "message": "131 ms",
  "color": "brightgreen"
}

Weekly

api/google/response-time-week.json

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "label": "response time 7d",
  "message": "176 ms",
  "color": "brightgreen"
}

Monthly

api/google/response-time-month.json

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "label": "response time 30d",
  "message": "127 ms",
  "color": "brightgreen"
}

Yearly

api/google/response-time-year.json

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "label": "response time 1y",
  "message": "132 ms",
  "color": "brightgreen"
}

Graph Generation

Response time graphs are generated daily by the graphs.yml workflow:

.github/workflows/graphs.yml

name: Graphs CI
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"
  repository_dispatch:
    types: [graphs]
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  release:
    name: Generate graphs
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
          token: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT || github.token }}
      - name: Generate graphs
        uses: upptime/uptime-monitor@v1.41.0
        with:
          command: "graphs"
        env:
          GH_PAT: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT || github.token }}

Graphs are generated once per day at midnight UTC to keep your status page up-to-date.

Visualization

The status page displays response time data in multiple formats:

Line Graphs

Interactive SVG graphs showing response time trends over:

• Last 24 hours
• Last 7 days
• Last 30 days
• Last year
• All time

Badges

Shields.io-style badges for embedding in README files:

![Response time](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upptime/upptime/HEAD/api/google/response-time.json)

Statistics

Aggregated statistics displayed on the status page:

• Current response time
• Average response time (multiple periods)
• Minimum and maximum values
• Percentile calculations

Performance Indicators

Response times are color-coded for easy interpretation:

Excellent

0-200ms

Good

200-500ms

Fair

500-1000ms

Slow

1000ms+

Historical Data

All response time data is stored in git, providing:

• Complete history since monitoring started
• Git-based audit trail of all measurements
• Commit-level granularity for each data point
• Branch/tag support for historical analysis

Viewing History

You can view the complete history of any site:

# View all commits for a site's history
git log history/google.yml

# See response time at a specific date
git show HEAD@{2024-01-01}:history/google.yml

Configuration Options

Custom Collection Schedule

Modify the response time collection frequency:

.upptimerc.yml

workflowSchedule:
  responseTime: "0 */6 * * *"  # Every 6 hours instead of daily
  graphs: "0 0 * * *"          # Keep graphs at midnight
  uptime: "*/5 * * * *"        # Uptime checks every 5 minutes

Expected Response Times

Set expected response time thresholds:

.upptimerc.yml

sites:
  - name: My API
    url: https://api.example.com
    expectedStatusCodes:
      - 200
      - 201
    maxResponseTime: 2000  # Alert if response time exceeds 2 seconds

Increasing the response time collection frequency will consume more GitHub Actions minutes.

README Integration

Upptime automatically updates your README with response time data:

.github/workflows/summary.yml

name: Summary CI
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  release:
    name: Generate README
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Update summary in README
        uses: upptime/uptime-monitor@v1.41.0
        with:
          command: "readme"
        env:
          GH_PAT: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT || github.token }}

This generates a table with response time graphs and statistics.

Using Response Time Data

API Access

Access response time data programmatically:

// Fetch current response time
const response = await fetch(
  'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upptime/upptime/HEAD/api/google/response-time.json'
);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(`Response time: ${data.message}`);

GitHub API

Query historical data using the GitHub API:

curl -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
  https://api.github.com/repos/upptime/upptime/commits?path=history/google.yml

Performance Optimization

Reduce Data Volume

Limit the number of historical data points:

commitMessages:
  responseTimeCommitMessage: "🟩 {site} ({responseTime}ms)"
  
# Squash old commits periodically to reduce repo size

Graph Image Format

Graphs are generated as optimized SVG for fast loading:

• Small file size
• Scalable to any resolution
• Embedded directly in HTML

CDN Caching

GitHub’s CDN automatically caches:

• API JSON files
• Graph images
• Status page assets

Alerts and Thresholds

While Upptime doesn’t have built-in response time alerts, you can:

1. Use GitHub Actions to parse response time data
2. Send notifications when thresholds are exceeded
3. Integrate with external monitoring tools

# Custom workflow to alert on slow response times
name: Response Time Alert
on:
  workflow_run:
    workflows: ["Response Time CI"]
    types: [completed]
jobs:
  check:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check response times
        run: |
          # Parse response time data and alert if needed
          # Send notification via Slack, email, etc.

Next Steps

• Configure Notifications for alerts
• Learn about Uptime Monitoring
• Explore Incident Management