2026-03-21
Instrumentation QA Without a War Room
Instrumentation bugs rarely throw loud errors. A renamed property ships, dashboards go quiet, and someone notices two weeks later during a board prep. Pair reviews and checklists sound dull next to new feature demos; they are also cheaper than reconstructing history.
Keep the checklist short: expected event name, required properties present, sample payload captured, and a note on whether the change is additive or breaking. Attach the sample to the PR. If you cannot produce a sample in staging, do not merge.
We keep pair sessions to two hours so the review stays concrete. Bring the diff and one staging user path. Leave with notes—not a second backlog of speculative dashboards.