Observability
The ability to understand a system's internal state from the signals it produces.
Plain English
Can we tell what the system is doing and why?
In context
Observability combines useful telemetry context and investigation workflows across metrics logs traces and events.
Example
“Better tracing improved observability of checkout latency.”
When you'll hear this
- incident response
- system design
- performance review
Common misunderstanding
Collecting large volumes of logs alone does not guarantee observability.
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-25
