Observability Review

Review code from an observability and debugging perspective.

Review Checklist

Logging

• Verify important operations are logged at appropriate levels
• Check log messages include sufficient context (IDs, parameters)
• Ensure structured logging format is used consistently
• Verify sensitive data is not logged (passwords, tokens, PII)

Log Levels

• DEBUG: Detailed flow information for development
• INFO: Key business events and state transitions
• WARN: Recoverable issues that need attention
• ERROR: Failures requiring investigation
• Verify log level usage matches the above semantics

Metrics & Monitoring

• Check key business metrics are tracked (request count, latency)
• Verify error rates are monitored with thresholds
• Ensure resource usage is tracked (memory, connections, queue depth)
• Check custom metrics for domain-specific health indicators

Distributed Tracing

• Verify trace/correlation IDs propagate across service boundaries
• Check spans are created for significant operations
• Ensure trace context is included in log entries
• Verify async operations maintain trace context

Alerting & Diagnostics

• Check health check endpoints exist and are meaningful
• Verify error conditions trigger appropriate alerts
• Ensure diagnostic information is accessible in production
• Check feature flags and configuration are observable

Debugging Support

• Verify error messages help identify root cause
• Check stack traces are preserved through error handling
• Ensure request/response payloads are loggable (at debug level)
• Verify state transitions are traceable in logs

Output Format