---
title: "View scaling activity and logs"
description: "Read the Scaling Activity of a TIR Auto Scaling Group to see when VMs were added or removed and why, filter the list, and export it."
content_type: "how-to"
product: "tir-auto-scaling"
platform: "TIR"
url: "/tir/tir-auto-scaling/how-to/view-scaling-activity-and-logs/"
topic: ["monitor"]
---

# View scaling activity and logs

The **Scaling Activity** tab is the log of an Auto Scaling Group. It lists every time the group added
or removed VMs and every change to its settings, with the reason and who or what did it. Use it to find
out why the VM count changed.

## Before you begin

- An Auto Scaling Group in your project. See [Create an Auto Scaling
  Group](/tir/tir-auto-scaling/how-to/create-an-auto-scaling-group/).
- Permission to read VMs in the project. See [TIR Access Control](/tir/tir-iam/).

## Open Scaling Activity

In **Auto Scaling Groups**, select the group's name and go to the **Scaling Activity** tab. Above the
activity list, a summary sets out the rules the group follows: its capacity range and any hold on
it, its target and scaling behavior on a **Usage-based** group, or its schedules on a **Scheduled**
group, where usage is not watched. When the group has schedules, they are listed there too.

## Read the activity list

The list has scaling events and settings changes together, newest first, by day and time. Each
scaling entry says how many VMs were added or removed, the count before and after, how long it took,
who or what did it, and why:

| Cause                | Reason                                                                                                          |
| -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Usage                | "CPU utilization reached 82% (target 60%)."                                                                     |
| Schedule             | "Scheduled policy "<name>" fired." or "A scheduled window ended, returning the group to its standing capacity." |
| Manual resize        | "A manual resize increased the group to N VMs."                                                                 |
| End of a manual hold | "A temporary manual hold expired, returning the group to its standing capacity."                                |

A change of the saved range reads "Minimum raised", "Minimum lowered", "Maximum raised" and so on, with
"min 2 → 3".

Settings entries say what happened: the group was created, updated, resized, relaunched, started,
stopped or deleted, a start or stop was requested, an action failed, or SSH keys were updated. A replaced VM
comes with its reason, for example "Replaced because the VM never became ready", a failed launch with
why it failed, and a skipped schedule with "Scheduled change skipped".

**By** is the email of the person who did it, or **Autoscaler**, **Schedule** or **System**. It is a
dash for a person whose account has been removed.

## Filter, search and export

- Type in **Search activities, reasons or people** to narrow the list.
- Filter by **All**, **Automatic** or **Manual**. **Manual** means a person did it. **Automatic** means the platform did it, through usage, a schedule or a replacement.
- Select **Export**, then **Download CSV** or **Download JSON**, to save the filtered list. The file is
  named `<group name>-activity`.

The **Overview** tab has a **Scaling Activity** chart with ranges such as **1h**, **1d** and **7d**, and **Recent Activity** with the five newest entries. See [Monitor an Auto Scaling
Group](/tir/tir-auto-scaling/how-to/monitor-an-auto-scaling-group/).

## Check that your change was recorded

After a change, such as **Scale Now** or an edit, a new entry tops the list, with your email under **By**.

To change what makes the group scale, see [Edit an Auto Scaling
Group](/tir/tir-auto-scaling/how-to/edit-an-auto-scaling-group/). For help when a group scales differently
from what you expect, see [Troubleshooting TIR Auto Scaling
Groups](/tir/tir-auto-scaling/troubleshooting/tir-auto-scaling/).