LESSON 185 / 215·2 min readIntermediate

Observability

ReferenceReference guide

Words made simple

A few useful meanings before you read the explanation.

AI: Software techniques for tasks such as recognizing patterns, understanding language or generating content.
API: A way for one piece of software to ask another for data or an action. A claims API might return the current status of a claim.
Token: A small piece of text processed by a model. It may be a whole word, part of a word, or punctuation.

More words from this lesson

Retrieval: Finding and fetching information that is useful for the current question.
State: The data describing where a workflow is now, what it already knows, and what still needs to happen.
Persistence: Saving information so it remains available after a request ends or a process restarts.
Streaming: Sending an answer in small pieces as it is produced, rather than waiting for the complete response.
Authentication: Checking who a user or service is, such as by verifying a login session.

Authentication, retrieval, model calls, tool calls, state transitions, validation, and final outcome, linked by run/request IDs.
I record timing, usage, and safe metadata without indiscriminately logging private content.

Time to first token measures how soon generation begins producing text, while total latency includes all required work and completion.
Streaming improves perceived progress but may not reduce total runtime or cost.

A trace diagnoses execution and performance and may be sampled.
A business audit records important actions, actors, decisions, and outcomes with appropriate integrity/retention.
I link them but do not let sampled traces replace claim approval records.

Streaming headers may have been sent before an error or disconnect.
I inspect terminal events and run/message status rather than HTTP code alone, then check provider completion, validation, cancellation, and persistence spans.

PAUSE & RECALL