---
title: "Observability"
description: "Use Vercel's observability tools to monitor Edge Requests, analyze performance with Query, set up alerts, and investigate external API dependencies."
canonical_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/vercel-foundations/platform-observability"
md_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/vercel-foundations/platform-observability.md"
docset_id: "vercel-academy"
doc_version: "1.0"
last_updated: "2026-06-27T23:08:02.345Z"
content_type: "lesson"
course: "vercel-foundations"
course_title: "Vercel Foundations"
prerequisites:  []
---

<agent-instructions>
Vercel Academy — structured learning, not reference docs.
Lessons are sequenced.
Adapt commands to the human's actual environment (OS, package manager, shell, editor) — detect from project context or ask, don't assume.
The lesson shows one path; if the human's project diverges, adapt concepts to their setup.
Preserve the learning goal over literal steps.
Quizzes are pedagogical — engage, don't spoil.
Quiz answers are included for your reference.
</agent-instructions>

# Observability

# Observability

Deploying is the easy part. Knowing what's happening after you deploy is where observability comes in. Vercel gives you several tools to monitor performance and usage, from a high-level overview down to granular queries.

## The observability overview

Start here for the big picture. The overview page shows four key metrics:

- **Edge Requests** — traffic to your static and dynamic routes through Vercel's global network
- **Fast Data Transfer** — how much data moves from Vercel's CDN to the client
- **Functions** — signals around function usage, execution time, failures, and timeouts
- **Compute** — average function runtime across your project

Click into any of these to drill down.

## Edge Requests in detail

The Edge Requests view breaks traffic down by route. A few investigation patterns to keep in mind:

- **Sort by request volume** to find your highest-traffic routes
- **Sort by cache hit rate** to spot routes that aren't caching as well as expected
- **Check verified bot traffic** to understand how much automated traffic is affecting your usage

Click into a specific route for deeper detail. Average response size can reveal unoptimized assets or oversized payloads. Time to first byte (TTFB) is a good starting point when users report that a route feels slow.

## Query

When the built-in breakdowns aren't enough, Query lets you build custom investigations. The flow is:

1. Choose a data source (Edge Requests, function invocations, image transformations)
2. Choose a metric (like time to first byte)
3. Group by a dimension (like route) to compare

You can adjust the time frame to compare periods and spot when a regression started. Save queries you'll reuse into notebooks for future investigations.

## Alerts

Rather than checking dashboards manually, alerts notify you when something is off. By default, you can subscribe to usage anomalies and error anomalies. Notifications go to email, Slack, or a webhook.

A practical starting point: set up at least one error anomaly alert so you find out quickly if error rates spike in production.

## External APIs

If your app depends on upstream services, slow responses might not be your fault. The External APIs view shows requests your functions make to third-party services, sortable by request volume, P75 latency, and error rate.

## Recap

- **Start with the overview** for a high-level picture of traffic, data transfer, functions, and compute
- **Drill into Edge Requests** for route-level detail on cache hit rates, response sizes, and TTFB
- **Use Query** with percentile metrics like P90 for deeper performance analysis
- **Enable alerts** so you're notified proactively when something breaks
- **Check External APIs** when the bottleneck is upstream, not in your own code

## Follow up docs

- [Observability overview](https://vercel.com/docs/observability)
- [Observability Insights](https://vercel.com/docs/observability/insights)
- [Query](https://vercel.com/docs/query)
- [Query Reference](https://vercel.com/docs/query/reference)
- [Alerts](https://vercel.com/docs/alerts)


---

[Full course index](/academy/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](/academy/sitemap.md)