Instrument for observability

Observability is the layer that measures the platform's performance claims; it is also where SOC 2 CC7 monitoring comes from. The observability standard is short and directive - this unit walks its four parts.

1. Three signals, one correlation

Cogitave's telemetry is OpenTelemetry-spec: the collector and SDK conform to the OpenTelemetry specification rather than importing a vendor agent. There are three signals, correlated under one model:

• Traces - the path of a request across services, span by span.
• Metrics - numeric time series (latency, error counts, throughput).
• Logs - structured, queryable event records.

The point of one correlation is that a single latency spike, its error log, and the trace that produced it are the same record read three ways. The standard states this as structured, queryable evidence: every change, access, and inference is a traceable record. When you instrument a service, you are not adding debug output - you are producing audit evidence.

2. SLIs measured on the real system

A Service Level Indicator (SLI) is a measured signal of health. The standard defines the menu each service draws from:

• Latency - p50 and p99 of the operation.
• Error rate - the fraction of requests that fail.
• Availability - the fraction of time the service is serving.

The measured targets are realistic, not aspirational: single- to low-double-digit millisecond p99 at the edge for a knowledge/MCP query, and ns-class only for in-process operations. The standard's own rule is that ns-class claims are in-process and measured, never asserted. When the error budget behind an SLO is exhausted, that is the release-freeze trigger - the mechanism the next unit engineers into a policy.

3. AI and agent observability

Because Cogitave is AI-native, telemetry covers a surface most observability stacks ignore. On top of the three signals, the standard requires:

• The agent trace - each step and tool call an agent makes, so an agent run is as inspectable as an HTTP request.
• Token and cost per inference.
• Eval drift and hallucination / guardrail-violation monitoring.

Crucially, inference records are kept as responsible-AI evidence for ISO/IEC 42001. An agent's behavior is not ephemeral; it is retained the way a financial transaction is. This is the same "assume non-repudiation" posture the AGENTS floor sets for every action.

4. Propagation: bound to the Core model

The last part is what makes the whole thing queryable. All signals are bound to the Cogitave Core model, so telemetry is reachable from MCP - a human and an agent ask the same question of the same model and get the same answer. The standard calls this dogfooding observability: the platform observes itself through the same interface it exposes to everyone else.