Instrumentation
Intermediate PronunciationEN/ˌɪnstrəmɛnˈteɪʃən/
Instrumentation is the work of adding measurement code to a product so that user behaviour and system state become recordable, sendable events.
Instrumentation takes three common forms: manual calls written into product code, automatic capture of generic interactions such as clicks and pageviews, and server-side sending for events the browser never sees, such as a final payment confirmation. Choosing between them trades accuracy and control against maintenance cost. The main risk is that instrumentation breaks silently: change a selector or remove a button and the event simply stops arriving with no error logged anywhere, so a falling chart gets read as falling user behaviour rather than as a data bug.
FAQ
Not entirely. Autocapture covers generic interactions and starts fast, but events that carry business meaning and need the right properties attached, such as order amount or subscription tier, still require a manual call.
Because the failure raises no error, the only route is monitoring the data stream itself: alerts on a sudden drop in one event's volume, a check for events that stopped arriving entirely, and replaying key flows in debug mode after each release.