| name | wide-events |
| description | Conceptual guide to wide events (canonical log lines) for observability. Use when thinking about instrumentation strategy, span annotations, or designing what context to capture. |
traditional := many(log-lines) → grep(services) → hope
wide := one(event) → query(structured) → answer
optimize(querying) ∧ ¬optimize(writing)
implementation := OTel spans + annotations
wide-events := mental-model for annotation strategy
annotate(span, context) where context = {
business ∪ user ∪ technical ∪ outcome
}
wide-event.fields := {
identity: {traceId, spanId, service, operation}
user: {userId, accountTier, accountAge, lifetimeValue}
business: {featureFlags, experimentGroup, cartValue}
performance: {durationMs, dbQueryCount, cacheHitRate, retryCount}
outcome: {success, errorCode, httpStatus}
}
high-dimensionality → better-queryability
high-cardinality(userId) → acceptable
scattered-logs := console.log("step1") >> console.log("step2") >> ...
low-dimensionality := span.set("success", true) ∧ |fields| < 5
technical-only := {http.status, db.queries} ∧ ¬{user, business}
span.setAttributes({
"request.operation", "user.id", "user.tier",
"cart.items", "cart.value", "feature.*",
"db.query_count", "cache.hit_rate",
"request.success"
})
∀ span → attach(identity ∪ user ∪ business ∪ performance ∪ outcome)
retain(100%) := errors ∨ slow(>p99) ∨ vip
retain(1-5%) := success ∧ fast
before(instrument) → verify(answerable({
"failures where tier=premium ∧ feature.new_flow=true"
"p99(latency) group by tier"
"errors group by featureFlags"
"full context for user X incident"
}))
¬queryable → ¬enough-context
cardinality := |unique values| (userId=high, httpMethod=low)
dimensionality := |fields per event| (more → better)
wide-event := canonical-log-line := one comprehensive record
deciding(span-annotations)
reviewing(instrumentation-coverage)
debugging(incidents) → "what context was missing?"
planning(new-service-observability)
choosing(fields-to-index)
Reference: See Article.md for full article by Boris Tane (loggingsucks.com)
