Monitoring Workflows: Log Everything That Matters

Every workflow run should leave behind enough truth to answer three questions: What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Where did the two diverge?

The minimum log contract

• A correlation ID on every run, passed to every step and side effect.
• Start, finish, and duration for each step — not just the failures.
• The exact payload at failure, not a redacted summary.
• Who or what ran it: schedule, webhook, manual, or a parent workflow.

Alert on the exception, not the average

Dashboards tell you the system is fine right up until it isn't. Alert on the specific failure modes that require a human — a payment step failing twice, a sync sitting in retry for an hour — and leave the averages to the charts.