Better Stack — Uptime, Logs, and Incident Management

Overview

Better Stack (formerly Better Uptime + Logtail), the observability platform combining uptime monitoring, log management, incident response, and status pages. Helps developers set up comprehensive monitoring with alerting, on-call schedules, and public status pages.

Instructions

Uptime Monitoring

// Better Stack monitors HTTP endpoints, TCP ports, DNS, SSL, and more.
// Configure via dashboard or Terraform.

// Terraform configuration for uptime monitors
resource "betteruptime_monitor" "api" {
  url          = "https://api.example.com/health"
  monitor_type = "status"
  check_frequency = 30                    // Check every 30 seconds
  
  request_headers = [{
    name  = "Authorization"
    value = "Bearer ${var.health_check_token}"
  }]

  // Alert if response doesn't contain expected string
  expected_status_codes = [200]
  
  // Regions to check from (catch regional outages)
  regions = ["us", "eu", "asia"]
  
  // Escalation policy
  policy_id = betteruptime_escalation_policy.default.id
}

resource "betteruptime_monitor" "database" {
  url          = "tcp://db.example.com:5432"
  monitor_type = "tcp"
  check_frequency = 60
  policy_id = betteruptime_escalation_policy.default.id
}

resource "betteruptime_monitor" "ssl_cert" {
  url          = "https://example.com"
  monitor_type = "ssl"
  // Alert 30 days before SSL certificate expires
  ssl_expiration = 30
  policy_id = betteruptime_escalation_policy.default.id
}

Log Management (Logtail)

// Send structured logs to Better Stack
import { Logtail } from "@logtail/node";

const logtail = new Logtail(process.env.LOGTAIL_SOURCE_TOKEN!);

// Structured logging with context
logtail.info("Order processed", {
  orderId: "ord_abc123",
  userId: "usr_456",
  amount: 99.99,
  duration_ms: 245,
  region: "us-east-1",
});

logtail.error("Payment failed", {
  orderId: "ord_def789",
  error: "Card declined",
  stripe_error_code: "card_declined",
  retryable: true,
});

// Pino integration (recommended for production)
import pino from "pino";

const logger = pino(
  pino.transport({
    target: "@logtail/pino",
    options: { sourceToken: process.env.LOGTAIL_SOURCE_TOKEN },
  })
);

logger.info({ orderId: "ord_123", userId: "usr_456" }, "Order created");

On-Call and Escalation

# Escalation policy configuration (via API or dashboard)
# Step 1: Notify on-call engineer via Slack + push notification
# Step 2: After 5 min unacknowledged → call on-call engineer
# Step 3: After 10 min unacknowledged → escalate to team lead
# Step 4: After 15 min unacknowledged → page entire engineering team

# On-call schedule: weekly rotation
# Week 1: engineer-a
# Week 2: engineer-b
# Week 3: engineer-c
# Override: any engineer can take over via Slack command

Status Pages

// Better Stack provides hosted status pages with:
// - Custom domain (status.yourcompany.com)
// - Automatic incident creation from monitor alerts
// - Manual incident updates
// - Subscriber notifications (email, SMS, webhook)
// - Historical uptime (90-day, 365-day)
// - Maintenance windows

// API: Create an incident programmatically
const response = await fetch("https://uptime.betterstack.com/api/v2/incidents", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.BETTERSTACK_API_TOKEN}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    requester_email: "ops@example.com",
    name: "Elevated API Latency",
    summary: "API response times are elevated due to database migration. No data loss expected.",
    description: "We are performing a planned database migration. Some requests may take longer than usual.",
    status_page_ids: ["12345"],
  }),
});

Heartbeat Monitoring

// Monitor cron jobs and background tasks
// Better Stack provides heartbeat URLs — if not pinged within the expected interval, it alerts.

// In your cron job:
async function dailyReport() {
  try {
    await generateReport();
    await sendReportEmail();

    // Ping heartbeat on success
    await fetch("https://uptime.betterstack.com/api/v1/heartbeat/abc123");
  } catch (error) {
    // Don't ping heartbeat — Better Stack will alert after the expected interval
    console.error("Daily report failed:", error);
  }
}

Installation

# Node.js logging
npm install @logtail/node
npm install @logtail/pino          # Pino transport

# CLI
brew install betterstack/tap/better-uptime

# Terraform provider
terraform {
  required_providers {
    betteruptime = {
      source = "BetterStackHQ/better-uptime"
    }
  }
}

Examples

Example 1: Setting up Betterstack for a microservices project

User request:

I have a Node.js API and a React frontend running in Docker. Set up Betterstack for monitoring/deployment.

The agent creates the necessary configuration files based on patterns like # Escalation policy configuration (via API or dashboard), sets up the integration with the existing Docker setup, configures appropriate defaults for a Node.js + React stack, and provides verification commands to confirm everything is working.

Example 2: Troubleshooting log management issues

User request:

Betterstack is showing errors in our log management. Here are the logs: [error output]

The agent analyzes the error output, identifies the root cause by cross-referencing with common Betterstack issues, applies the fix (updating configuration, adjusting resource limits, or correcting syntax), and verifies the resolution with appropriate health checks.

Guidelines

1. Monitor from multiple regions — Check from US, EU, and Asia; a single region can have false positives from network issues
2. Heartbeats for cron jobs — Use heartbeat monitors for every scheduled task; silent failures are the worst kind
3. Escalation policies — Always have an escalation chain; a single point of failure in alerting defeats the purpose
4. Status page for trust — Public status pages build customer trust; auto-create incidents from monitors for transparency
5. Structured logs — Send JSON with context (userId, orderId, etc.); Better Stack's SQL-like queries work best with structured data
6. Alert fatigue prevention — Set appropriate thresholds; don't alert on single failures, use confirmation periods (2-3 consecutive failures)
7. Maintenance windows — Schedule maintenance windows to suppress alerts during planned work
8. Correlate logs with incidents — Link log sources to monitors; when an incident fires, jump directly to relevant logs