Causation ID

Kind: mechanism

Layer: Observability

Record: architecture:causation-id

Severity: recommended

Scope: event, message, workflow

Canonical: Ontology

A mechanism that stamps each event with the identifier of the event that caused it.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Correlation ID and before Distributed Tracing.

Requires

• Event Metadata

Reinforces

• Causality
• Audit Trail

Enables

• Cause-Effect Reconstruction

Conflicts with

• Unlinked Events

In tension with

• Metadata Verbosity

Tensions

• Causation ID / Metadata Verbosity

Violated by

• Unlinked Events

Severity

• recommended

Category

• Observability / Auditability / Traceability

Refactors

• Causal Consistency
• Causal Dependency

Linked from

• Causality / Ordering / Distributed Time
• Observability / Auditability / Traceability
• Severity levels
• The resolutions