| name | monitoring |
| description | Observability stack — Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog, metrics, alerting. |
Monitoring & Observability
Core Principle
Instrument first → aggregate second → alert third. Never set up alerts before you know what to measure.
Stack Selection
| Scenario | Recommended |
|---|
| VPS / single server, cost-sensitive | Prometheus + Grafana (self-hosted via Docker) |
| AWS-native stack | CloudWatch (Metrics + Logs + Alarms) |
| GCP-native stack | Cloud Monitoring + Cloud Logging |
| Azure-native stack | Azure Monitor + Log Analytics |
| Multi-cloud or mixed stack | Datadog (SaaS) or Grafana Cloud |
| High log volume, self-hosted | Loki + Grafana (avoid ELK unless already invested) |
For full setup details, load the matching reference:
| Stack | Reference |
|---|
| Prometheus + Grafana (+ Loki) | references/prometheus-grafana.md |
| AWS CloudWatch | references/cloudwatch.md |
| Datadog | references/datadog.md |
Application Instrumentation Requirements
Confirm with the backend developer before setting up any monitoring stack:
| Language | Library |
|---|
| Node.js | prom-client |
| Python | prometheus-client |
| Go | prometheus/client_golang |
| Java | Micrometer |
| PHP | promphp/prometheus_client_php |
Minimum metrics every app must expose:
- HTTP request count (by method, path, status)
- HTTP request duration (histogram — P50/P95/P99)
- Active connections or queue depth
- Error count (by type)
Before Declaring Done
