Getting Started with Insights

Overview

This guide introduces AppStatus Insights and covers:

• Blind spots: services reporting nothing at all
• Services sending errors but no other telemetry
• Telemetry with no alert rule attached
• Named user journeys with end-to-end health
• SLO targets and current attainment

What are Insights in AppStatus?

Insights answers the questions your dashboards cannot, because dashboards can only show what you are already collecting. It reports what you are not watching: services that report nothing, services that send only errors, and telemetry that no alert rule is attached to.

It also tracks the flows that matter commercially. A named user journey spans several services, and its health names the worst hop — so you start at the problem rather than reading every service in the path.

Key capabilities:

• Blind-spot detection across silent and partially-instrumented services
• Service ownership: team, on-call channel, runbook, repository and tier
• Named multi-service user journeys with end-to-end health
• SLO targets with current attainment
• Worst-hop naming so triage starts in the right place

What you will see

What the blind-spot report looks like

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Troubleshooting

Operational Guidance

• A silent service is not a healthy service; it is an unmonitored one.
• Journey health names the worst hop, so start there instead of reading every service.
• Telemetry with no alert rule attached is data nobody will see at 3am.

Step-by-Step Setup

Insights is the page you set up once and then re-check whenever a new service ships. Most of the setup is recording things you already know but have never written down — who owns what, and which flows actually matter.

1. 1

   Read the blind-spot report first

   Open the blind-spot list before configuring anything. It shows services reporting nothing, services sending only errors, and telemetry with no alert rule attached — usually a more useful first hour than any dashboard.

   WhereInsights → Blind spots
2. 2

   Record service ownership

   For each service, record the owning team, on-call channel, runbook link, repository and tier. Ownership drives alert routing, so a name without a channel is only half the answer.

   WhereInsights → Service ownership

   Tip

   The runbook link is the field people skip and the one that matters most at 3am.

3. 3

   Define the journeys that matter

   Name the multi-service flows that make money — signup, checkout, search. A journey spans several hops and its health names the worst one, so triage starts at the problem instead of a list of services.

   WhereInsights → Journeys
4. 4

   Set SLO targets

   Set targets on the journeys you named. Pick something you would actually defend in a review — 100% is not a target, it is an aspiration that guarantees you miss it.

   WhereInsights → SLOs
5. 5

   Close the gaps and re-check

   Work through the blind-spot findings, then come back after each new service ships. The report is only useful if it stays current.

   WhereInsights → Blind spots

Configuration Options

Every option you can set, what each choice means, and what to pick. Use this as a reference while you fill in the form.

Feature Reference

Every feature, where to find it in the app, and what it does. Use this when you know what you want to do but not where it lives.

Next Steps

Continue building your monitoring stack: