Elasticsearch has many metrics that can be used to determine if a cluster is healthy. Listed below are the metrics that are currently a good idea to monitor with the reason(s) why they should be monitored and any possible recourse for issues.
Unless otherwise noted, all of the API requests work starting with 1.0.0. If a newer version is required for a given metric, then it is noted by the metric's name.
Metrics are an easy way to monitor the health of a cluster and they can be easily accessed from the HTTP API. Each Metrics table is broken down by their source.