Build a proactive log review habit

Catching issues before users report them starts with a consistent log review practice. Here's how to make it part of your daily workflow.

Overview

The most effective teams don't wait for user reports to discover issues — they proactively review logs to catch anomalies early. A 5-10 minute daily review can prevent hours of firefighting.


Daily review checklist

Morning check (5 minutes)

Run through this quick check each morning:

  1. Open Request Logs → Filter to Live mode
  2. Scan for red badges — Any error status requests since yesterday?
  3. Check failed models count — Are failover rates higher than usual?
  4. Review duration column — Any requests significantly slower than baseline?
  5. Check webhook deliveries — Any failed deliveries that need attention?

What to look for

Morning Review Dashboard (mental model)
Error rate: 2.1% (normal: < 3%) OK
Failover rate: 4.2% (normal: < 5%) OK
P95 latency: 3.2s (normal: < 4s) OK
Webhook errors: 0 (normal: < 2) OK
Status: All clear

If anything is outside your normal range, investigate immediately.


Weekly deep dive (30 minutes)

Once a week, look at broader patterns:

  1. Compare error rates week-over-week — Is reliability improving or degrading?
  2. Review token usage trends — Are average tokens per request growing? (This increases costs)
  3. Check provider performance — Has any provider's latency or failure rate changed?
  4. Review failover chains — Are specific providers consistently failing?

Example weekly report

Week of Feb 3-9, 2026:
Total requests: 8,420
Success rate: 97.8% (last week: 98.1%)
Avg latency: 1,340ms (last week: 1,280ms)
Failover rate: 3.2% (last week: 2.8%)
Top failing model: gpt-4o-mini (12 failures, up from 6)
Webhook success: 99.4% (last week: 99.6%)
Estimated cost: $42.30 (last week: $38.50)
 
Action items:
- Investigate gpt-4o-mini failure increase
- Review cost increase (+10%)

Setting up alerts

Complement manual reviews with automated alerts:

MetricWarning thresholdCritical threshold
Error rate> 3% over 1 hour> 10% over 15 min
Failover rate> 5% over 1 hour> 15% over 15 min
P95 latency> 2x baseline> 3x baseline
Webhook failures> 2 in 1 hour> 5 in 15 min
Callback timeouts> 1 in 1 hour> 3 in 15 min

Alert escalation

Level 1 (Warning): Log it, review in daily check
Level 2 (Critical): Investigate immediately
Level 3 (Outage): All hands, coordinate in incident channel

Building the habit

  • Schedule it — Add a 5-minute recurring calendar block for morning reviews
  • Create a checklist — Use the checklist above or customize for your needs
  • Rotate responsibility — If you have a team, rotate the daily review role
  • Document findings — Keep a simple log of what you notice each day
  • Act on trends — Don't just observe — take action when you see patterns

Next steps