Re: Track skipped tables during autovacuum and autoanalyze

Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>

From: Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
To: Yugo Nagata <nagata@sraoss.co.jp>
Cc: Sami Imseih <samimseih@gmail.com>, Pgsql Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-03-25T02:07:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 01:28:47AM +0900, Yugo Nagata wrote:
> Although the timestamps are overwritten on each skipped autovacuum or
> autoanalyze, they still indicate when the last attempt was made. This
> can help users confirm that autovacuum is actively attempting to run,
> and that the issue is due to repeated skips rather than inactivity.
> 
> While counters can indicate overall activity, they do not reveal when
> the last skip occurred. With timestamps, users can immediately see the
> most recent attempt, even without a separate dashboard or historical
> tracking.
> 
> Therefore, counters are useful for monitoring overall activity, but
> timestamps give additional, complementary information, so it seems
> worthwhile to include them too.

Hmm..  I can buy this argument for the timestamps, especially for
database with many relations of various sizes that could take a
various amount of time to process.  The timestamps could offer hints
about the time it takes between the skips, even if snapshots of the
stats data are not taken at a very aggressive frequency.

This is v20 material at this stage, of course..
--
Michael