Fleet observability
The fleet plane is a standalone observability server that many application nodes stream their HTTP and SQL events to, so every node's live telemetry lands in one place that keeps running when any single node does not.
Most applications never need it. Start from the shape you need:
- One node, or you only ever look at one node at a time — the in-process panel is complete on its own. Nothing on this page applies.
- Several nodes of one application, one shared live feed — turn on the
Redis relay (the
cluster_*keys in Configuration). Still just the panel. - A dedicated, always-on observability server — that is the fleet plane, documented here.
cluster_* configurationDespite the similar vocabulary, the cluster_* keys and this section are
unrelated. Those keys relay the live feed between nodes of one application
over Redis, inside the same process. The fleet plane runs a separate server
binary, uses no Redis, and can serve many applications. You can run either,
both, or neither.
How the pieces fit
app node 1 ──[orbit/agent]──┐
app node 2 ──[orbit/agent]──┼──> [orbit/server] ──> admin UI
app node N ──[orbit/agent]──┘ (Connect-RPC bidi stream)
Each agent embeds in a framework process and streams observability events over a single Connect-RPC bidirectional stream to the standalone server, which fans them out to connected admin UIs. Each application node also keeps its own in-process panel; the fleet plane is additive, not a replacement.
The three modules
They ship as siblings of the root module and are released independently, with their own tags:
| Module | Role |
|---|---|
orbit/proto | The wire contract shared by all three, plus generated stubs. |
orbit/agent | In-process agent that ships events to an admin server. |
orbit/server | Standalone admin server that receives them. |
To put it into production, see Deployment and Security.