Document: 29-monitoring-logging.md
Version: 1.0.0

Purpose

This document defines the monitoring, logging, and observability standards used across all Rundown projects.

Monitoring ensures that applications remain healthy, available, and performant after deployment. Logging provides the information required to understand application behaviour, diagnose issues, and improve long-term reliability.

Together, they provide operational visibility into every production system.

Observability Philosophy

Applications should report their own health.

Operational issues should be detected before they significantly affect users.

Monitoring is not about collecting data—it is about providing actionable insight.

Responsibilities

The monitoring layer owns:

• Application health

• Uptime monitoring

• Error reporting

• Log collection

• Performance metrics

• Resource utilization

• Alerting

• Operational visibility

Non-Responsibilities

Monitoring should not own:

• Business logic

• Incident resolution

• Infrastructure provisioning

• Deployment decisions

Monitoring identifies problems.

Engineering teams resolve them.

Monitoring Categories

Every production application should monitor:

Availability

Examples:

• Uptime

• HTTP availability

• Health endpoints

• SSL certificate validity

Performance

Examples:

• Response times

• Core Web Vitals

• API latency

• Database query performance

• Page load times

Infrastructure

Examples:

• CPU utilization

• Memory usage

• Disk usage

• Container health

• Network availability

Application

Examples:

• Application errors

• Failed requests

• Authentication failures

• Background job status

Logging Principles

Logs should be:

• Structured

• Consistent

• Searchable

• Actionable

• Relevant

Logs should explain what happened without exposing sensitive information.

Log Levels

Standard log levels:

DEBUG

INFO

WARN

ERROR

FATAL

Production environments should minimize verbose debugging logs.

Error Tracking

Production applications should capture:

• Unhandled exceptions

• Failed API requests

• Application crashes

• Background job failures

Errors should include sufficient context to reproduce the issue.

Health Checks

Critical services should expose health endpoints.

Typical checks include:

• Application status

• Database connectivity

• Storage availability

• External service connectivity

Health checks support automated recovery and deployment validation.

Alerting

Alerts should be:

• Actionable

• Prioritized

• Timely

Typical alert conditions include:

• Service unavailable

• High error rates

• Resource exhaustion

• Failed deployments

• Backup failures

Avoid excessive alerting that leads to notification fatigue.

Dashboards

Operational dashboards should present:

• Application status

• Performance metrics

• Infrastructure health

• Deployment history

• Error trends

Dashboards should enable rapid understanding of system health.

Log Retention

Log retention policies should balance:

• Operational requirements

• Storage costs

• Compliance obligations

Logs should be retained only as long as necessary.

Security

Logs should never expose:

• Passwords

• API keys

• Authentication tokens

• Personal information

• Database credentials

Sensitive data should be masked or omitted.

Monitoring Tools

The specific monitoring platform may vary by project.

Preferred characteristics include:

• Real-time monitoring

• Alerting

• Historical metrics

• Searchable logs

• Dashboard support

Tool selection should align with project complexity and operational requirements.

Engineering Decision

Proactive Monitoring

Status: Accepted

Decision

Every production Rundown application must include monitoring and logging sufficient to detect operational issues before they become client-reported incidents.

Reasoning

Proactive monitoring:

• Reduces downtime.

• Improves reliability.

• Simplifies troubleshooting.

• Supports continuous improvement.

• Improves client confidence.

Monitoring Checklist

Before production launch, verify:

• Uptime monitoring configured.

• Health endpoints available.

• Error logging enabled.

• Alerts configured.

• Infrastructure metrics available.

• Sensitive information excluded from logs.

• Operational dashboard reviewed.

Summary

Monitoring and logging provide continuous visibility into the health of every Rundown application.

By combining proactive monitoring, structured logging, and actionable alerting, Rundown ensures that production systems remain reliable, maintainable, and capable of supporting long-term operational excellence.

Related Documents

• 23-performance-architecture.md

• 27-deployment-workflow.md

• 28-ci-cd-standards.md

• 30-backup-recovery.md

Related ADRs

• ADR-003: Documentation Information Architecture