beforeAll (Section)

When To Use

Use beforeAll when several monitor sources need the same pre-fetched data.

Typical use cases:

• Login/session bootstrap for HTTP connectors.
• Shared discovery lists reused by multiple monitor tasks.
• Expensive command output collected once per cycle.

beforeAll sources still return tables and can be referenced anywhere with ${source::beforeAll.<name>}.

Syntax

beforeAll:
  session:
    type: http
    method: post
    path: /rest/login-sessions
    body: '{"username":"%{esc(json)::USERNAME}","password":"%{esc(json)::PASSWORD}"}'
    resultContent: body

Properties

Recommended Pattern

• Keep beforeAll focused on reusable setup/data.
• Use explicit source names (session, inventory, deviceList) rather than source(1) for new connectors.
• Feed executeForEachEntryOf.source from a beforeAll table when fan-out is required.

Common Mistakes

• Putting monitor-specific business logic in beforeAll instead of monitor sources.
• Fetching massive payloads and re-parsing them in every monitor.
• Returning unstable column layouts that break downstream mappings.

Community Examples

• Cassandra^[1]
• LinuxFile^[2]
• WindowsFile^[3]