% This is generated by ESQL's TStepTests. Do not edit it. See docs/reference/query-languages/esql/README.md for how to regenerate it.

## Description

Creates groups of values - buckets - out of a `@timestamp` attribute using either a fixed step width or a target bucket count. Unlike [`TBUCKET`](/reference/query-languages/esql/functions-operators/grouping-functions/tbucket.md), which aligns buckets to calendar boundaries, TSTEP uses a fixed-width UTC grid anchored at the start of the query range. Each bucket is labeled by its right boundary. When a target bucket count is provided, TSTEP derives a fixed step width from the query range. The derived step is rounded up so that the result uses no more than the target number of buckets.  When using ES|QL in Kibana, the range can be derived automatically from the [`@timestamp` filter](docs-content://explore-analyze/query-filter/languages/esql-kibana.md#_standard_time_filter) that Kibana adds to the query.

