Forge observability

forge-observability: Observability

Purpose

Verify that logs, metrics, traces, events, alerts, and dashboards answer concrete operational questions safely.

This is an agent playbook, not a claim of standalone analyzer coverage. Apply

fullstack-forge/references/shared/module-contract.md

for common applicability, evidence, command-safety, mutation, verification, and completion rules.

Never hide failed checks or claim that an operation ran when it did not.

Automatic activation signals

Activate when a request or direct repository evidence involves observability, when the user explicitly names forge-observability, or when discovery proves an applicable boundary.

• Long-running or production services
• Critical client workflows

When not to activate

• Pure build-time artifacts with no runtime behavior

Automated support

Relevant discovery inputs are:

• telemetry instrumentation
• dashboards and alerts as code
• incident runbooks

Available deterministic support, where present:

• Use inspect-deployment-config for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as NOT_VERIFIED.

Agent inspection procedure

1. Pick three real operational questions (why is this request slow, what failed for this user, is this job stuck) and verify the current telemetry can answer each.
2. Inspect log structure, levels, correlation and request identifiers, and propagation across services and jobs.
3. Verify metrics and traces exist for the critical paths, with OpenTelemetry-compatible semantics where practical.
4. Check alerting: which failures page someone, which dashboards exist, and whether silent failure modes (dead queues, cron no-runs) are detected.
5. Inspect telemetry for sensitive-data leakage and verify retention and sampling policies.

Manual inspection requirements:

• Use telemetry to answer latency, error, saturation, and affected-user questions
• Review deployed dashboards and paging routes

Stack-specific guidance:

• Instrument framework and provider boundaries without double-counting spans

Evidence to collect

For formal findings, also follow fullstack-forge/references/PROTOCOL.md. Record the module's inspected boundary, relevant tests, direct observations, and unavailable evidence.

Primary standards used as criteria, not proof of compliance:

• OpenTelemetry Specification 1.59
• OWASP Logging Cheat Sheet

Common production failures

• Trace a request across service, job, database, and integration boundaries with stable correlation
• Inspect structured event names, metric units, cardinality, sampling, error status, service metadata, and deployment version
• Check alert symptom quality, ownership, runbook links, SLO coverage, redaction, access, and retention

Missing-control checks

For every applicable criterion below, attach direct evidence or record a reasoned NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED status. The list is a routing checklist, not evidence by itself.

• Structured logs
• Log levels
• Correlation IDs
• Request IDs
• Metrics
• Traces
• Error monitoring
• Business events
• Sensitive-data redaction
• Dashboards
• Alerts
• Job monitoring
• Database monitoring
• External-integration monitoring
• Audit logs
• Retention
• Sampling
• OpenTelemetry-compatible concepts where practical

Commands and tools

• Run forge observability audit --json or fullstack-forge observability audit --json when an explicit audit is requested and the CLI is installed. Normal feature work does not require it.
• Use the deterministic support named above only for its documented bounded evidence.

Safe fixes

• Add bounded context and correlation identifiers
• Redact secrets and high-cardinality or personal fields

Approval-required changes

• Changing telemetry vendors, retention, sampling, or personal-data collection

Verification

• Generate a known success and failure and locate both in telemetry
• Validate alerts with a controlled signal where safe

Completion contract

Apply the shared module contract and the module-specific limitations below.

Known limitations

• Instrumentation code does not prove deployed ingestion or alert delivery