# What is Observability?

> How well you can understand a system's internal state from the data it emits.

Canonical: https://www.decimal.app/glossary/observability · Last reviewed: 2026-09-23

Observability is the practice of collecting logs, 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.

## Related terms

- [Logs](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/logs): Timestamped records of events a system emits as it runs.
- [Distributed Tracing](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/distributed-tracing): Following one request across every service it touches, with timing for each hop.
- [Incident](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/incident): An unplanned disruption or degradation of a service that needs an urgent response.

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