3 ms·

How we configured OpenTelemetry logs in Rails

31 points by __vivek 28d ago

jasondjk 28d ago
I’d contend having user behaviour logged directly into your monolithic app db using the ahoy gem instead of some external grafana/etc system is much more powerful because then you can point an agent at a copy of your database and it can wire together all of your operational and business metrics at the same time without having to try and say, connect a user profile between grafana/salesforce/hubspot/intercom etc. eg. “Claude, tell me which customers activate and convert and which churn and why and make a plan to optimise the funnel”. Hooking that up has never been easier https://insidertrades.directory/built-with-rails/ahoy-blazer-analytics-claude-voice-cli https://insidertrades.directory/built-with-rails/ahoy-blazer... ie. build, don’t buy in the age of AI
- drdexebtjl 28d ago
  No, the right way is to just push the transactional data into your analytical database periodically, and then point the model at the analytical database. On every place I worked, logs, traces and metrics represent approximately 100% of their data by size. The transactional data is a rounding error.
- gracefulliberty 28d ago
  Sending user data to Anthropic?
- __vivek 28d ago
  Ahoy tracks user behavior, but it can't give you spans. If you want to know exactly how many milliseconds an external API or DB query took, you need OTel.
willcodeforfoo 28d ago
Would love to see what people are doing to visualize in Grafana.
- __vivek 28d ago
  Right now we mostly use it for log-to-trace navigation and basic service health metrics (like error rates, p95 latency, and overall request volume).
- madduci 28d ago
  If you are using the OtelCollector, you can export logs to Grafana Loki, to have them visualised see: https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/otel/ https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/otel/
sander1095 27d ago
Next step is to connect it to Aspire for a fantastic dev experience! https://aspire.dev/ https://aspire.dev/

31 points by __vivek 28d ago

I’d contend having user behaviour logged directly into your monolithic app db using the ahoy gem instead of some external grafana/etc system is much more powerful because then you can point an agent at a copy of your database and it can wire together all of your operational and business metrics at the same time without having to try and say, connect a user profile between grafana/salesforce/hubspot/intercom etc. eg. “Claude, tell me which customers activate and convert and which churn and why and make a plan to optimise the funnel”. Hooking that up has never been easier https://insidertrades.directory/built-with-rails/ahoy-blazer-analytics-claude-voice-cli https://insidertrades.directory/built-with-rails/ahoy-blazer... ie. build, don’t buy in the age of AI

drdexebtjl 28d ago
No, the right way is to just push the transactional data into your analytical database periodically, and then point the model at the analytical database. On every place I worked, logs, traces and metrics represent approximately 100% of their data by size. The transactional data is a rounding error.
gracefulliberty 28d ago
Sending user data to Anthropic?
__vivek 28d ago
Ahoy tracks user behavior, but it can't give you spans. If you want to know exactly how many milliseconds an external API or DB query took, you need OTel.

willcodeforfoo 28d ago

Would love to see what people are doing to visualize in Grafana.

__vivek 28d ago
Right now we mostly use it for log-to-trace navigation and basic service health metrics (like error rates, p95 latency, and overall request volume).
madduci 28d ago
If you are using the OtelCollector, you can export logs to Grafana Loki, to have them visualised see: https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/otel/ https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/otel/

sander1095 27d ago

Next step is to connect it to Aspire for a fantastic dev experience! https://aspire.dev/ https://aspire.dev/