The three pillars of observability explained plainly — what metrics, logs, and traces each tell you, and which one to reach for first depending on the question you're actually asking.
New engineers often reach for logs first, every time, because it's the most familiar tool — but logs are the slowest way to answer many operational questions. Knowing which of the three tools actually answers your specific question saves real time during an incident, not just in theory.
What each of the three observability pillars is actually good for, a simple rule for choosing which one to check first, and why they work best used together rather than any one alone.
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