Observability Instrumentation

Structured logging captures contextual fields and log levels in a machine-readable format. Use Go's slog package to emit leveled logs with request IDs and context propagation, enabling faster diagnosis of production issues across your system.

Logs record discrete events with context; metrics measure aggregated performance (counters, gauges, histograms); traces follow requests across distributed services. Together, these three pillars provide complete visibility into system behavior and performance.

Distributed tracing creates spans that track requests through multiple services by propagating context. Assign trace IDs to requests, create child spans for operations, and export them to collect end-to-end request paths and latency across your microservice architecture.

Yes. Instrument your application with counters, gauges, and histograms, then expose them via an HTTP endpoint in Prometheus text format. This enables Prometheus to scrape your metrics and integrate with monitoring and alerting systems.

Structured logging transforms unstructured logs into queryable, context-rich events. You can migrate incrementally by adopting slog for new code and gradually replacing printf-style logging, improving debuggability without a complete rewrite.