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+# Telegraf Output Buffer Strategy
+
+## Objective
+
+Introduce a new agent-level config option to choose a disk buffer strategy for
+output plugin metric queues.
+
+## Overview
+
+Currently, when a Telegraf output metric queue fills, either due to incoming
+metrics being too fast or various issues with writing to the output, new
+metrics are dropped and never written to the output. This specification
+defines a set of options to make this output queue more durable by persisting
+pending metrics to disk rather than only an in-memory limited size queue.
+
+## Keywords
+
+output plugins, agent configuration, persist to disk
+
+## Agent Configuration
+
+The configuration is at the agent-level, with options for:
+
+- **Memory**, the current implementation, with no persistence to disk
+- **Write-through**, all metrics are also written to disk using a
+  Write Ahead Log (WAL) file
+- **Disk-overflow**, when the memory buffer fills, metrics are flushed to a
+  WAL file to avoid dropping overflow metrics
+
+As well as an option to specify a directory to store the WAL files on disk,
+with a default value. These configurations are global, and no change means
+memory only mode, retaining current behavior.
+
+## Metric Ordering and Tracking
+
+Tracking metrics will be accepted either on a successful write to the output
+source like currently, or on write to the WAL file. Metrics will be written
+to their appropriate output in the order they are received in the buffer
+regardless of which buffer strategy is chosen.
+
+## Disk Utilization and File Handling
+
+Each output plugin has its own in-memory output buffer, and therefore will
+each have their own WAL file for buffer persistence. This file may not exist
+if Telegraf is successfully able to write all of its metrics without filling
+the in-memory buffer in disk-overflow mode, or not at all in memory mode.
+Telegraf should use one file per output plugin, and remove entries from the
+WAL file as they are written to the output.
+
+Telegraf will not make any attempt to limit the size on disk taken by these
+files beyond cleaning up WAL files for metrics that have successfully been
+flushed to their output source. It is the user's responsibility to ensure
+these files do not entirely fill the disk, both during Telegraf uptime and
+with lingering files from previous instances of the program.
+
+If WAL files exist for an output plugin from previous instances of Telegraf,
+they will be picked up and flushed before any new metrics that are written
+to the output. This is to ensure that these metrics are not lost, and to
+ensure that output write order remains consistent.
+
+Telegraf must additionally provide a way to manually flush WAL files via
+some separate plugin or similar. This could be used as a way to ensure that
+WAL files are properly written in the event that the output plugin changes
+and the WAL file is unable to be detected by a new instance of Telegraf.
+This plugin should not be required for use to allow the buffer strategy to
+work.
+
+## Is/Is-not
+
+- Is a way to prevent metrics from being dropped due to a full memory buffer
+- Is not a way to guarantee data safety in the event of a crash or system failure
+- Is not a way to manage file system allocation size, file space will be used
+  until the disk is full
+
+## Prior art
+
+[Initial issue](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/802)
+[Loose specification issue](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/14805)