How would you make key aspects of a software system traceable?

Here is how I would answer that DevOps interview question about making key aspects of a software system traceable:

To make key aspects of a software system traceable, I would implement the following practices:

Version Control

• Use a version control system like Git to track all changes to the codebase over time
• Require developers to commit code with descriptive commit messages that explain what was changed
• Maintain a single source of truth for the codebase in a central repository

Logging and Monitoring

• Implement robust logging throughout the application to capture important events, errors, and metrics
• Use a centralized logging solution to aggregate logs from all components and environments
• Set up monitoring to alert on key metrics and potential issues
• Correlate logs with monitoring data to provide full visibility into system behavior

Traceability Metadata

• Include traceability metadata in logs, metrics, and other artifacts to link them back to the originating code, build, deployment, etc.
• Examples of traceability metadata:
  • Git commit hash
  • Build number
  • Environment name
  • Deployment timestamp
    ...