diff --git a/apps/severed-blog-hpa.yaml b/apps/severed-blog-hpa.yaml
index 7b3f36e..c37a246 100644
--- a/apps/severed-blog-hpa.yaml
+++ b/apps/severed-blog-hpa.yaml
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ spec:
         name: cpu
         target:
           type: Utilization
-          averageUtilization: 70      # Scale up if CPU Usage exceeds 70%
+          averageUtilization: 90      # Scale up if CPU Usage exceeds 90%
     - type: Resource
       resource:
         name: memory
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ spec:
           name: nginx_http_requests_total
         target:
           type: AverageValue
-          averageValue: 10            # Scale up if requests > 10 per second per pod
+          averageValue: "10k"         # Scale up if requests > 10K per second per pod
   behavior:
     scaleDown:
       stabilizationWindowSeconds: 300 # Wait 5 minutes before removing a pod
diff --git a/infra/alloy-setup.yaml b/infra/alloy-setup.yaml
index 75b1ae6..ba8feb5 100644
--- a/infra/alloy-setup.yaml
+++ b/infra/alloy-setup.yaml
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ data:
       role = "pod"
     }
 
-    // 2. Relabeling: Filter for ONLY the blog pods
+    // 2. Relabeling: Filter and Label "severed-blog" pods
     discovery.relabel "blog_pods" {
       targets = discovery.kubernetes.k8s_pods.targets
     
@@ -56,6 +56,20 @@ data:
         regex = "severed-blog"
       }
 
+      // Explicitly set 'pod' and 'namespace' labels for the Adapter
+      rule {
+        action = "replace"
+        source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_pod_name"]
+        target_label = "pod"
+      }
+
+      rule {
+        action = "replace"
+        source_labels = ["__meta_kubernetes_namespace"]
+        target_label = "namespace"
+      }
+
+      // Route to the sidecar exporter port
       rule {
         action = "replace"
         source_labels = ["__address__"]
@@ -68,12 +82,13 @@ data:
     // 3. Direct Nginx Scraper
     prometheus.scrape "nginx_scraper" {
       targets = discovery.relabel.blog_pods.output
-    
       forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
       job_name   = "integrations/nginx"
+    
+      // Removed the restrictive metric_relabel to ensure data flows
     }
 
-    // 4. Host Metrics
+    // 4. Host Metrics (Unix Exporter)
     prometheus.exporter.unix "host" {
       rootfs_path = "/host/root"
       sysfs_path  = "/host/sys"
@@ -163,4 +178,4 @@ spec:
             path: /sys
         - name: root
           hostPath:
-            path: /
\ No newline at end of file
+            path: /
diff --git a/infra/observer/adapter-values.yaml b/infra/observer/adapter-values.yaml
index 5edb5c1..5c72ce9 100644
--- a/infra/observer/adapter-values.yaml
+++ b/infra/observer/adapter-values.yaml
@@ -3,14 +3,13 @@ prometheus:
   port: 9090
 
 rules:
-  default: true
   custom:
-    - seriesQuery: '{__name__=~"nginx_status_requests",namespace!="",pod!=""}'
+    - seriesQuery: 'nginx_http_requests_total{pod!="",namespace!=""}'
       resources:
         overrides:
           namespace: {resource: "namespace"}
           pod: {resource: "pod"}
       name:
-        matches: "^nginx_status_requests"
-        as: "http_requests_per_second"
-      metricsQuery: 'sum(rate(<<.Series>>{<<.LabelMatchers>>}[1m])) by (<<.GroupBy>>)'
+        matches: "^(.*)_total"
+        as: "nginx_http_requests_total"
+      metricsQuery: 'rate(<<.Series>>{<<.LabelMatchers>>}[1m])'