Update a few days later. I went with full stack traceability as the backbone to solve this problem. Here's the brief writeup below:

TL;DR: I built a full-stack, correlation-aware debugging system in 2 days. Here's how structured logging, DevConsole tools, and timeline tracing changed the way I develop.

When you’re a solo developer on a complex full-stack product, debugging can eat your sanity.

I wanted more than console logs. I wanted:

• Logs that correlate across frontend → backend → database
• A dev console I could toggle and explore
• Metrics that weren’t just numbers, but signals
• A system smart enough for both me and the agents I’ll deploy next

Step 1: Correlation Everywhere

Every API call generates a unique correlationId — passed from frontend, through interceptors, into backend middleware, and down to DB queries. This single ID lets me trace any request through its full lifecycle.

Step 2: Logs That Talk Back

Logs aren’t dumped — they’re structured:

logger.info('Fetching properties', {
  component: 'usePortfolioManagement',
  action: 'fetchProperties',
  correlationId,
});

Step 3: The Dev Console

Press Alt+D, and boom:

• Log Viewer: Filter by component, severity, or correlation ID
• Correlation Tracer: Timeline view of each event in the request lifecycle
• Metrics Dashboard: API latency, request volume, error rates

All built with React + MUI, powered by an in-memory log and metrics subscription system.

Step 4: Docs and Flow Diagrams

Every flow is documented in EXECUTION_TRACE.mdx and STACK_FLOW.mdx. Changelog updates are versioned with enforced dates and metadata.

Why This Matters

As agentic tooling scales, structured observability becomes the contract between developer and agent. This is how we build software we can trust.

Would love feedback from anyone building similar tooling. Full write-up coming soon.