RED, USE, Golden: When Each Method Fits

Three observability methodologies. RED for services, USE for resources, Golden for general. The decision rule.

RED for services

Rate, Errors, Duration. Per-endpoint. The natural fit for HTTP and RPC services.

Most user-facing services use RED. Enable by default.

USE for resources

Utilisation, Saturation, Errors. Per-resource (CPU, disk, queue). Catches infrastructure pressure.

Use alongside RED. RED watches services; USE watches resources serving them.

Golden for everything

Latency, Traffic, Errors, Saturation. The universal four. Works on any system.

When in doubt, start with Golden. Refine into RED or USE if the system is service-shaped or resource-shaped.