RED Method

Definitions

1. A monitoring methodology for request-driven services: Rate (requests per second), Errors (failed requests per second), and Duration (latency distribution). Developed by Tom Wilkie at Grafana Labs. Complementary to USE Method (for infrastructure). Every service dashboard should display RED metrics as the starting point for debugging.

   In plain English: Three essential metrics for any service: how many requests, how many fail, and how long they take.

   Example: "The RED dashboard shows rate dropped 50%, errors spiked to 15%, and p99 duration went from 200ms to 5 seconds -- something broke at 2:15 PM."

Related Terms

• Twelve-Factor App
• toil
• Incident Management
• Prometheus
• Test-Driven Development
• Health Check
• USE Method
• Golden Signals