We are presently investigating methods to quantify anisotropies in the cosmic expansion rate in a model-independent manner, i.e. avoiding a priori assumptions about FLRW scenarios or the splitting of observed signals into background and perturbed components. We determine the expression of the spherical harmonic components of the expansion rate fluctuation field \(\eta \) as a function of the multipoles of the covariant cosmographic parameters. These parameters encompass both kinematic aspects (expansion rate \(\mathbb {H}_o\) , deceleration \(\mathbb {Q}_o\) , and jerk \(\mathbb {J}_o\) ) and geometric factors (curvature \(\mathbb {R}_o\) ). Our work establishes that this formalism consistently describes metric fluctuations, even in a local ( \(z<0.05\) ) and strongly anisotropic universe. To effectively execute this approach, however, it is crucial to carefully distinguish anisotropic effects arising from the observer’s motion relative to the rest frame of matter from those originating solely due to metric fluctuations. We also provide a forecast on the precision with which future datasets, such as those from the Zwicky Transient Facility survey (ZTF), will constrain the multipoles of the cosmographic parameters at the observer’s position.