Using the Tools
This guide is for engineers using BizFirst Observe day-to-day — debugging failed workflow executions, investigating slow nodes, monitoring the HIL backlog, and responding to alerts. Each page covers a complete workflow from symptom to resolution.
The Three Use Cases
Debug: Something Failed
A workflow execution failed. Find the error log, trace the code path through spans, identify the responsible node, and read the exception details. Covered in: Find Logs, Trace a Slow Node, Error Analysis.
Monitor: Is Everything Healthy?
Regularly check the Flow Studio Overview dashboard. Watch the HIL backlog for growing approval queues. Monitor EdgeStream throughput. Check Octopus LLM call rates. Covered in: HIL Backlog, Tenant Queries.
Alert: Something Is Wrong Right Now
An alert fires in Slack or PagerDuty. Click the link in the notification, understand the alert context, drill into the relevant dashboard, and start remediation. Covered in: Alert Response.
Which Tool for Which Task?
| Task | Tool | Starting Point |
|---|---|---|
| Find all logs for a specific execution | Grafana Explore (Loki) | {job="processengine"} |= "exec-id" |
| Find the trace for a specific execution | Grafana Explore (Tempo) | TraceId from log line → Derived Field link |
| Identify the slowest node type | Node Performance dashboard | P99 Latency by Node Type panel |
| Check current HIL backlog | HIL Analytics dashboard | Current Backlog gauge + Overdue Tasks stat |
| Check system-wide health | Flow Studio Overview dashboard | Error Rate + P99 Latency panels |
| Investigate an alert | Grafana alert detail → linked dashboard | Alert notification link |
| Scope data to one tenant | Dashboard variable $tenant | Dropdown in top bar of any dashboard |
Engineer Personas
| Role | Primary Tools | Key Dashboards |
|---|---|---|
| On-call engineer (incident response) | Grafana Explore, alert notifications | Flow Studio Overview, Error Analysis |
| Workflow developer (debugging) | Grafana Explore (Loki + Tempo), split view | Node Performance, Trace Explorer |
| Operations (daily monitoring) | Dashboard viewer | Flow Studio Overview, HIL Analytics, Tenant Health |
| Process owner (SLA monitoring) | Dashboard viewer | HIL Analytics, Tenant Health |
| Platform engineer | All tools including Prometheus UI, Alertmanager | Infrastructure, all dashboards |