Observability

What it is

Observability is the practice of collecting logsLogsTimestamped records of events a system emits as it runs., metrics, and traces so engineers can answer new questions about system behavior without shipping new code.

Why it matters

Good observability is what makes customer issues diagnosable. The data is usually there; the gap is that support can't use it.

Best practices

1. Cover the three signals – Logs, metrics, and traces, linked by IDs.
2. Tag by customer – Make per-account views possible.
3. Share dashboards with support – Start with error rates by product area.

How Decimal helps

Decimal brings observability data into support by querying tools like Datadog and Amazon CloudWatch as part of each investigation.