Getting Started with APM

Overview

This guide introduces AppStatus APM and covers:

• Instrumentation: SDKs for Node, Python, Go, PHP, Java, .NET and Ruby
• OpenTelemetry: point an existing OTLP exporter at AppStatus, no SDK swap
• Service map built automatically from real traffic
• Latency percentiles, throughput and error rate per service and route
• One-click drill-down from a slow trace into its logs and errors

What is APM in AppStatus?

APM records how each request moves through your services. Every hop is timed, so a slow checkout is not just "slow" — you can see that 40ms was your API, 12ms was the database and 900ms was a third-party call.

You do not draw the service map or declare dependencies. Once traffic flows, AppStatus builds the map from the traces themselves and keeps it current as your architecture changes.

Key capabilities:

• Distributed tracing with a full waterfall view per request
• Golden metrics — rate, errors, duration and saturation — per service
• Automatic dependency discovery and service mapping
• Deploy markers on the timeline so a regression lines up with its release
• Trace IDs carried into logs and errors for one-click correlation

What you will see

What the service list looks like once traces arrive

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Troubleshooting

Operational Guidance

• Read the service map before the dashboards — it shows which dependency is actually degrading.
• Compare latency percentiles, not averages; p99 is where users notice.
• Traces carry the trace ID into logs and errors, so start at the trace and drill outward.
• Deploy markers on the timeline tell you whether a release caused the change.

Step-by-Step Setup

Getting APM running is two decisions and one deploy: which key the service uses, and how it reports. Once traffic flows, the service map, latency percentiles and error rate build themselves — there is nothing to draw or declare.

1. 1

   Create an ingest key scoped to APM

   Open Ingest Keys and create a key scoped to APM for the environment you are setting up. The key value is shown once — copy it into your secret manager now, not into source control.

   WhereIngest Keys → Create key

   Tip

   One scope per key. A key reused across signals turns a single leak into full ingest access.

2. 2

   Add instrumentation

   Install the SDK for your language and initialise it as early as possible in your entry point. If you already run OpenTelemetry, skip the SDK entirely and point your existing OTLP exporter at the AppStatus endpoint instead — your instrumentation does not change.

   WhereAPM → Add service → pick your language

   Tip

   Initialise before your framework and database clients load, or the first calls of each request go untraced.

3. 3

   Set service name and environment

   Give the service a stable name — the deployable unit, not the hostname — and set the environment. Traces group by these two values, so a rename splits your history and a missing environment mixes staging into production baselines.

   WhereSDK configuration
4. 4

   Deploy and confirm

   Deploy, then send a handful of requests. Open the APM service list and confirm the service appears with live throughput. First data usually lands within a minute.

   WhereAPM → Services
5. 5

   Walk one trace end to end

   Open the slowest recent trace and read the waterfall. Every hop your request makes should be visible; a gap means a service in the path is not yet instrumented, or a proxy is dropping the trace header.

   WhereAPM → Services → pick a service → Traces

   Tip

   Do this once now. Discovering a missing hop during an incident is a bad time to find out.

Configuration Options

Every option you can set, what each choice means, and what to pick. Use this as a reference while you fill in the form.

Feature Reference

Every feature, where to find it in the app, and what it does. Use this when you know what you want to do but not where it lives.

Next Steps

Continue building your monitoring stack: