Monitoring Foundation
Monitoring is how you keep performance improvements from drifting. The goal is not to stare at dashboards; it is to detect regressions early and have enough context to troubleshoot quickly.
Core Idea
Monitor four layers: user experience, edge/cache behavior, application/DB behavior, and origin health.
What to Monitor
| Layer | Signals | Typical tools |
|---|---|---|
| User experience | CWV trends, slow paths by device | Cloudflare RUM, Search Console (CrUX) |
| Edge/cache | cache status shifts, 4xx/5xx spikes, threat spikes | Cloudflare Analytics, Security Events |
| App/DB | slow queries, error rates, top slow routes | slow query log, APM (optional), Query Monitor (staging) |
| Origin | CPU/RAM/disk pressure, worker saturation | Netdata, provider graphs |
Alerting Principles
- Alert on changes that matter: 5xx spikes, sustained latency increases, resource exhaustion.
- Prefer "change detection" over rigid thresholds (baseline first, then alert on deviations).
- Reduce noise: multi-region confirmation, short retry windows, and clear severity routing.
Monitoring Workflow
- Daily Quick Check
- Weekly Review
- Monthly Audit
Time: 2 minutes
- Check Cloudflare for errors (5xx) and cache status shifts.
- If anything looks off, check the origin for resource pressure.
Time: 15 minutes
- Review CWV trends by path/device (field data).
- Review slow queries and recurring errors.
- Pick 1-3 fixes and re-baseline.
Time: 1 hour
- Compare trends against deploy logs and plugin/theme changes.
- Review longer-term origin graphs (CPU, memory, disk growth).
- Run a small load test after major infrastructure changes.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | What Happens | How to Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Only using lab tests (Lighthouse) | Miss real-user performance issues | Add field data monitoring (Search Console) |
| No server-level monitoring | Discover resource exhaustion from user complaints | Install Netdata or similar |
| Dashboards but no alerts | Regressions go unnoticed for days | Configure threshold-based alerts |
| Ignoring database monitoring | Slow queries silently degrade performance | Monitor slow query log |
Checklist
View Checklist
- Server monitoring tool is installed and accessible.
- Core Web Vitals are tracked in Google Search Console.
- Query Monitor is installed on staging/development.
- Uptime monitoring is configured with alerts.
- Alert thresholds are defined for CPU, RAM, disk, and error rate.
- Recurring performance review is scheduled.