# Observability

> Stack-agnostic observability: structured logs, correlation ids, metrics and traces; no PII or secrets in logs. Makes a production issue traceable to why it happened. Use when adding a log line, an error path, a metric, or when an incident could not be traced.

- Skill: `byerlikaya/observability` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add byerlikaya/observability`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/byerlikaya/observability/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: byerlikaya (https://skillmd.com/u/byerlikaya)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/byerlikaya/observability

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# Observability

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Trigger phrases: "observability", "structured logging", "structured log", "add a trace", "add a metric", "correlation id", "add logging"

Goal: to be able to answer "what happened, where, why" during a production incident **by looking at the logs**.
It is stack-agnostic; when you need a framework-specific library/format, do a web search.

## Three signals
- **Log** — event record (structured/JSON, leveled).
- **Metric** — numeric time series (request count, latency, error rate, resource usage).
- **Trace** — a request's journey across services (spans + correlation id).

## Checklist
- [ ] Logs are **structured** (JSON/key-value), not string interpolation
- [ ] Every log line carries a **correlation id** (request/trace id)
- [ ] Levels are correct: the DEBUG/INFO/WARN/ERROR distinction is meaningful
- [ ] **No PII/secret is logged** (password, token, card, national/ID number, email body)
- [ ] Error logs carry context (input summary, user/resource id — not PII); the stack trace does not leak to the user
- [ ] Critical business metric + infrastructure metric are emitted (where applicable)
- [ ] The correlation id is **propagated** across service-to-service calls (header/propagation)

## How
1. **Structured logger** — set up/use one whose output is machine-readable (JSON). Search for the library the framework recommends.
2. **Correlation id**: generate it at the entry point (HTTP middleware / message consumer) or take it from the incoming `X-Request-Id`/trace header; put it in the log context; **propagate** it to downstream calls.
3. **Level discipline**: INFO = business event, WARN = expected-but-noteworthy, ERROR = needs intervention. DEBUG is off/sampled in production.
4. **Context fields**: `event`, `correlation_id`, `user_id` (not PII, an opaque id), `duration_ms`, `outcome`. Do not embed them in free text.
5. **Metrics**: at minimum RED (Rate, Errors, Duration) or USE; plus business-critical counters. Search for the framework's metrics library.
6. **Trace** (in a distributed system): start/end spans, bind the correlation id to the trace id.

## PII / secret leakage (critical)
**Never** to the log: password, token, API key, card number, national/ID number, full email/phone body, raw request body.
- Mask: `user@***`, card `**** 1234`, token `sk-p…789`.
- When needed, log an **opaque id** (hash/uuid), not the raw value.
- This axis overlaps with `security-scan` (sensitive data in logs) and `privacy-compliance` (KVKK/GDPR) — if personal data is involved, trigger those too.

## Invariant rules
1. **Structured > free text** — greppable, parseable.
2. **Correlation id on every line** — without it, a distributed error is untraceable.
3. **No PII/secret is logged** — mask it or use an opaque id.
4. **Do not make noise** — every line must answer a question; do not add meaningless spam logs.
5. **Match the existing format** — if the repo has a logger, follow its pattern; do not impose a new one.