OBSERVERTC / Concepts

Detector evaluation and issue lifecycles

Understand when evidence becomes an active condition.

A detector checks a particular condition using available measurements and state. Some detectors report observations; others open an issue and later resolve it. Their output is evidence about that condition, not a universal diagnosis of the call.

Evaluate sustained evidence

Many conditions need several observations to distinguish a persistent problem from a short fluctuation. Detection windows collect recent values; recovery windows help determine when a condition has settled. Other detectors use explicit elapsed-time thresholds or immediate state transitions.

Changing collection cadence changes how much time a window covers. It does not necessarily change every detector’s independent timer. See configuration for window sizes and tuning consequences.

Follow a stateful issue

Eligible observations → condition confirmed → keyed issue raised
                                             ↓
                                      evidence updated
                                             ↓
                                      recovery confirmed
                                             ↓
                                        issue resolved

The issue key identifies the active occurrence. Several tracks can have the same issue type, so the type alone is not a unique key. One-off issue records do not have this ongoing lifecycle.

Distinguish absent evidence

If required statistics are unavailable, or the application intentionally pauses a track, evaluation can be gated. An inactive detector or missing input is not equivalent to a healthy measurement. Read each detector’s guards and limitations before treating its output as a guarantee.

Use monitor issues for lifecycle handling and server ingestion for mirrored client issues.

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