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Debugging Go Applications - Matt Boyle, Cloudflare
Learn effective Go debugging techniques from Cloudflare's Matt Boyle, covering structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing, alerts, and practical observability tips.
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Start debugging with structured logging as a foundation - it provides initial visibility and is an easy first step
- Monitor RED metrics (Rate, Error, Duration) as a baseline for application health tracking
- Use distributed tracing (like OpenTelemetry) to debug complex issues and understand request flows across services
- Set up alerts carefully to avoid alert fatigue - ensure they are actionable and indicate real problems
- Keep logging focused on errors and exceptional events, use debug level sparingly
- Consider cost vs benefit when implementing observability - start simple and add complexity as needed
- The Go debugger is a powerful tool for local debugging - use breakpoints and step-through debugging
- Structure logs in JSON format to make them machine-readable and easier to analyze
- Sample traces for outliers rather than collecting everything to manage costs and noise
- Define clear SLOs (Service Level Objectives) to help determine what constitutes acceptable system behavior
- Link observability data to runbooks and documentation to help with incident response
- Use metrics for high-volume aggregate data, traces for specific requests, and logs for exceptional events
- Make debugging part of the development process rather than an afterthought
- Implement observability incrementally - start with logs, add metrics, then add tracing as needed