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Architecture & Patterns: Observability + Tracing

Production Patterns

Architecture View

graph LR
  A[Request ID] --> B[Step traces]
  B --> C[Latency and cost metrics]
  C --> D[SLO dashboard]
  D --> E[Alert policy]

Common Failure Modes

Common Failure Modes

  • Missing request-id propagation across steps.
  • Logging totals only without per-step detail.
  • Alert thresholds not tied to business impact.

Interview Q&A

Q: Interview Q: What belongs in a minimum viable trace record?

Include request id, step name, duration, status, and error metadata. Cost estimates are also useful when model usage is significant.

Q: Interview Q: How do you set realistic SLO thresholds?

Start from user-facing latency targets, then align error budget to acceptable failure impact. Tune thresholds using historical distributions.