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Metric Instrumentation

"You can't fix what you can't see — give the server a set of gauges before you touch anything else."

Key Insight​

Metric instrumentation means adding code to a serving engine (like vLLM) so it continuously reports numbers about its own behavior — latency, throughput, error rate, GPU usage — which tools such as Prometheus and Grafana then collect and graph. Watching percentiles like p99, not just averages, is what reveals the slow requests real users actually feel.

Why This Matters​

Without live metrics a problem only surfaces when a customer complains. Wiring up the right signals is the foundation of observability — the basis on which every dashboard, alert, and capacity decision is built.