Logging & Observability

Core Principles

1. Structured logging with Serilog — Every log entry is a structured event with named properties, not a formatted string. This enables searching, filtering, and alerting. All setup (two-stage bootstrap, AddSerilog(), sinks, enrichers) lives in the serilog skill — that skill's AddSerilog()-over-UseSerilog() guidance is canonical.
2. OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing — Traces connect requests across services; metrics track system health over time. Full setup lives in the opentelemetry skill.
3. Health checks for operational readiness — Every service exposes /health endpoints for load balancers and orchestrators. Liveness and readiness are separate questions and separate endpoints.
4. Correlation IDs for request tracing — Every request gets a unique ID that flows through all log entries and downstream service calls, so one user complaint maps to one filtered log stream.

Patterns

How the Pieces Fit Together