A completed process is not the whole outcome
A workflow can finish without producing the business result you intended. An AI agent can return an answer even when its surrounding automation fails to store it. Useful workflow monitoring records execution clearly and keeps the meaning of success explicit.
MetriBeacon workflow monitors accept lifecycle events reported by your integration. They can show starts, final states, duration and supplied measurements such as costs. They do not automatically understand your prompts or decide whether an AI-generated answer is correct.
Give each run its own identity
Create a new UUID for every workflow execution and use it consistently for the events of that run. Parallel executions need different run IDs, even if they process the same kind of task. Reusing one identifier for many executions makes their history ambiguous.
A retry of an event delivery is different from retrying the workflow itself. Re-send the same event with its stable event ID and unchanged content when reporting is retried. If your application really starts a new execution, assign a new run identity. Keep these two decisions separate in your integration.
Report a small, complete lifecycle
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
started |
The integration reports that this execution began |
succeeded |
The execution reached your defined successful end |
failed |
The execution ended in a reported failure |
aborted |
The execution was intentionally or otherwise terminated |
Report the final event using the same run ID as the start. Decide what each state means in your application before sending it. For example, “succeeded” might require both generating a result and storing it successfully, rather than merely receiving an API response.
The workflow monitoring documentation describes the event model and integration behaviour. Use it together with the HTTPS API documentation for the actual request format rather than guessing field names from a chart.
Instrument one workflow first
- Create a workflow monitor with a recognisable name.
- Configure a reporting key appropriate to its scope.
- Generate a distinct run ID when the application begins work.
- Send a start event and retain the identity through the execution.
- Report the actual final state and relevant measured values.
- Inspect a successful run, a controlled failure and two parallel runs.
Keep reporting failures distinct from the operation's result. A temporary failure to send a final event does not mean that the business operation should automatically be executed again. Retrying event delivery must not duplicate the actual task.
Use duration to guide investigation
An overdue run can indicate blocked work, a slow dependency or a missing final event. Its duration alone does not prove which cause applies. Compare the recorded start, expected runtime and final reporting path before changing the workflow.
If you break work into reported steps, use them to explain execution progress. A step should describe an operation you actually observed, not a synthetic success inserted to make the view green. Missing observations remain missing evidence.
For work launched on a fixed schedule, a job monitor may be a better fit for missing-start expectations. The cron job monitoring article explains scheduled runs; workflow monitoring describes the lifecycle of the execution itself.
Report costs without inventing them
When your integration knows an execution's cost, send the measured amount with an appropriate series and unit. Costs shown in monitoring depend on what you report. MetriBeacon does not infer a provider invoice from elapsed time or automatically inspect every model request.
Keep your cost definition consistent across runs. If one value includes several calls and another includes only one, a comparison is misleading. Note the scope in the monitor or series description, and keep incomplete measurements distinguishable from genuine zero cost.
Protect the contents of the task
The lifecycle integration does not automatically collect full prompts, logs or customer content. Report the operational evidence you need and avoid embedding secrets or sensitive task payloads in names and diagnostic fields. A run ID gives you a correlation point without turning the monitoring record into a copy of the workload.
Frequently asked questions
Can MetriBeacon judge whether an AI answer is correct?
No. Your application or a separate evaluation determines that. Report a final state according to a success definition you can verify.
Should retries reuse the run ID?
Re-delivering an event belongs to the same run and stable event identity. Starting a new workflow execution needs a new run ID.
Does a missing final event prove failure?
It shows an incomplete reporting history. Investigate both the execution and the delivery of its final event.
Make one execution traceable
Create a free account and connect one workflow using the documented lifecycle. For separate scheduled tasks, the Backup/Cron template below provides a job-monitoring entry point. Keep workflow reporting, schedule checks and outcome validation explicit.
