Frontend Telemetry

Frontend Telemetry is the privacy-safe, consent-aware event tracking system built into WebCrux that provides the CueCrux operations team with visibility into how users interact with the platform while strictly respecting user privacy preferences and regulatory requirements.

The telemetry system is built on OpenTelemetry, the industry-standard observability framework. Every user interaction, from page views and feature clicks to search queries and receipt inspections, generates a telemetry span that captures timing, context, and outcome information. These spans are structured according to the OpenTelemetry semantic conventions, ensuring compatibility with standard observability tools and dashboards.

Consent gating is the foundational design principle. Before any telemetry data is collected, the system checks the user's consent preferences. Users are presented with clear, understandable consent options during their first visit, and their choices are respected throughout their session and across subsequent visits. Users who decline analytics tracking generate zero telemetry events. Users who consent to basic analytics generate anonymised interaction metrics. Users who consent to detailed analytics generate richer data that helps the team understand usage patterns and performance characteristics.

Anonymisation is applied at the collection layer, not as a post-processing step. This means that personally identifiable information never enters the telemetry pipeline in the first place. User identifiers are replaced with pseudonymous session tokens that cannot be linked back to individual users. Query text is not captured in telemetry events, only query metadata like topic classification and result count. Location data is aggregated to the country level, and precise timestamps are rounded to prevent timing-based re-identification.

The telemetry data that is collected provides valuable operational insights. Page view tracking reveals which surfaces are most used and which are underutilised. Feature usage metrics show which capabilities are driving engagement and which might benefit from improved discoverability or documentation. Performance timings identify slow pages, sluggish API calls, and rendering bottlenecks that affect user experience.

Core Web Vitals are tracked automatically, measuring Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift for every page load. These metrics feed into performance dashboards that help the development team maintain a fast, responsive user experience across devices and network conditions.

Frontend Telemetry integrates with the Performance Metrics system on the backend, providing end-to-end visibility from the user's browser through the BFF layer to the backend services. This full-stack observability enables the team to diagnose issues that span multiple layers of the platform.

For the CueCrux platform, Frontend Telemetry demonstrates that useful observability and strong privacy are not mutually exclusive. The system proves that a platform can understand its users' needs without compromising their privacy.