# Barrace A bar race chart animates ranked bars across time frames. Use it to show how top categories change over time.

### Configure a bar race chart Use the **Plot** panel to choose axes, grouping, and display settings.

### Bar race chart options Use these options to control how the bar race chart renders. | Option | What it controls | Typical values / notes | | ------------ | ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Value column | Numeric metric that determines bar length. | Examples: `value`, `memory_kb`, `cpu_usage`, `bytes_sent`. This column must be numeric. | | Label column | What each bar represents (entity name). | Common choices: `pod`, `host`, `process`, `disk`. This column is used to name each bar and track entities across frames. | | Unit | Suffix appended to the displayed value. | Examples: `kB`, `MB`, `ms`, `%`, `ops`. | | Apply | Applies changes to the widget. | Changes do not render until you click **Apply**. | ### When to use a bar race chart Use a bar race chart when you want to: * Show how rankings change over time (top N moving up/down) * Highlight “winners” and “losers” across time frames * Tell a story about change, not just a final snapshot Typical use cases: * Top services by request volume over time * Top namespaces by log ingest over time * Top hosts by CPU usage over time * Top teams by cost over time ### When not to use a bar race chart Avoid a bar race chart when: * You need precise value comparisons (use Bar/Table) * You have too many categories (animation becomes noisy) * You want a continuous time series trend (use Line/Area) * You need record-level inspection (use Table/List/Details)