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ECO-OBS-METRIC-001

Name: High-cardinality metric explosion

Category: Observability & Telemetry

Family: Metrics

Primary layer: data

System layers: data

Description

Metrics include unbounded labels such as user IDs, request IDs, or raw paths, causing storage and query amplification.

Impact

  • type: storage
  • confidence: 0.8
  • notes: Added as part of the 0.3.0 expansion to capture cross-system sustainability and operational waste.

Detection

  • method: static-or-runtime
  • confidence: 0.55
  • runtime_validation_required: Yes

Remediation

  • guidance: Bound label values, aggregate dimensions, normalize paths, and reject unbounded labels in review.
  • tradeoffs: May require architecture, product, or operations review rather than a local code change.

Cost Dimensions

  • compute: medium
  • memory: medium
  • network: medium
  • storage: high
  • human_time: medium
  • carbon: medium
  • water: low

Amplification

  • scales_with_users: Yes
  • scales_with_data_volume: Yes
  • scales_non_linearly: Yes

Temporal Behavior

  • startup_only: No
  • steady_state: Yes
  • burst_sensitive: Yes
  • time_degradation: No

Runtime Evidence

  • metrics backend cardinality
  • query latency
  • observability billing

Pattern examples

No pattern examples provided.

Remediation examples

No remediation examples provided.

Metadata

  • catalog_version: 0.4.0
  • status: draft
  • source: catalog expansion recommendations applied 2026-05-21