Observability that cannot break a run

A broken telemetry plugin costs you a warning, never a red build. Here
are two: one throws on every record, one never finishes its flush.

telemetry: () => ({ onRecord() { throw new Error('collector is down') } })
telemetry: () => ({ onRunSummary() {}, flush: () => new Promise<void>(() => {}) })

$ vx run build test --all
[vx] telemetry sink 'sink-that-throws' threw in onRecord; disabled for this run: collector is down
 ⏺︎     9ms success miss     packages/a#test
 ⏺︎    15ms success miss     packages/b#test
[vx] telemetry flush timed out after 3000ms; buffered records lost
            8 success · 8 total
$ echo $?
0

Demo workspace, wall 3.19 s · vx 0be0367 · 2026-10-23

All green, exit 0, one warning per broken sink.

A sink has no way back into the run

interface TelemetrySink {
  readonly name?: string
  readonly wants?: ReadonlyArray<'run.start' | 'task.start' | 'task.end' | 'task.log' | 'task.sample' | 'run.end'>
  onRecord?(record: TelemetryRecord): void          // must return promptly; buffer here
  onRunSummary?(summary: RunSummaryRecord): void    // one per run, at the end
  flush?(signal: AbortSignal): Promise<void>        // awaited at end of run, time-bounded;
                                                    // `signal` aborts at the deadline
}

A sink gets plain-data records and a read-only context: workspace root,
cache folder, a warn function. Nothing it holds can change a build.
Buffer in onRecord and send in flush.

No sink, no cost

With no telemetry plugin, vx adds no listener, builds no summary and
spawns no git. A plugin whose setup() throws stops the run early and
names itself.

What runs on it

• @vzn/vx-otel sends OTLP traces, metrics and logs with no OpenTelemetry SDK. Each task's span goes out as the task ends.
• @vzn/vx-ci writes a GitHub job summary.

A remote cache follows the same rule. An error or timeout is a miss and
a warning, and the run goes on.

Guide: Writing a vx plugin. More at
vznjs.github.io/vx.

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Originally published on the vx blog. vx is open-source (MIT) task orchestration with a build cache: vznjs.github.io/vx · GitHub.

_{Written with AI assistance.}