Notion Observability

Overview

Instrument Notion API calls with metrics, structured logging, and alerting. Track request rates, latencies, error rates, and rate limit headroom. This skill covers a full observability stack: an instrumented client wrapper, Prometheus metrics with histogram buckets tuned for Notion's typical 200-800ms latency, structured logging via pino, health check endpoints, and Prometheus alerting rules for error rate spikes, rate limit exhaustion, high latency, and service outages.

Prerequisites

• @notionhq/client v2+ installed (npm install @notionhq/client)
• Python alternative: notion-client (pip install notion-client)
• Prometheus-compatible metrics backend (optional: Grafana, Datadog, or CloudWatch)
• Structured logging library: pino (Node.js) or structlog (Python)

Instructions

Step 1: Instrumented Notion Client Wrapper

Wrap every Notion API call with timing, error classification, and structured logging:

import { Client, isNotionClientError, APIErrorCode } from '@notionhq/client';

interface NotionMetrics {
  requestCount: number;
  errorCount: number;
  rateLimitCount: number;
  totalLatencyMs: number;
  latencyBuckets: Map<string, number[]>;
  lastError: { code: string; message: string; timestamp: string } | null;
}

class InstrumentedNotionClient {
  private client: Client;
  private metrics: NotionMetrics = {
    requestCount: 0,
    errorCount: 0,
    rateLimitCount: 0,
    totalLatencyMs: 0,
    latencyBuckets: new Map(),
    lastError: null,
  };

  constructor(auth: string, timeoutMs = 30_000) {
    this.client = new Client({ auth, timeoutMs });
  }

  async call<T>(operation: string, fn: (client: Client) => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    const start = performance.now();
    this.metrics.requestCount++;

    try {
      const result = await fn(this.client);
      const durationMs = Math.round(performance.now() - start);
      this.metrics.totalLatencyMs += durationMs;
      this.recordLatency(operation, durationMs);

      console.log(JSON.stringify({
        level: 'info',
        service: 'notion',
        operation,
        durationMs,
        status: 'ok',
        timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
      }));

      return result;
    } catch (error) {
      const durationMs = Math.round(performance.now() - start);
      this.metrics.totalLatencyMs += durationMs;
      this.metrics.errorCount++;
      this.recordLatency(operation, durationMs);

      let errorInfo: { code: string; message: string; status: number };

      if (isNotionClientError(error)) {
        errorInfo = { code: error.code, message: error.message, status: error.status };

        if (error.code === APIErrorCode.RateLimited) {
          this.metrics.rateLimitCount++;
        }
      } else {
        errorInfo = { code: 'unknown', message: String(error), status: 0 };
      }

      this.metrics.lastError = {
        code: errorInfo.code,
        message: errorInfo.message,
        timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
      };

      console.log(JSON.stringify({
        level: 'error',
        service: 'notion',
        operation,
        durationMs,
        status: 'error',
        errorCode: errorInfo.code,
        httpStatus: errorInfo.status,
        message: errorInfo.message,
        timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
      }));

      throw error;
    }
  }

  private recordLatency(operation: string, durationMs: number) {
    const existing = this.metrics.latencyBuckets.get(operation) || [];
    existing.push(durationMs);
    this.metrics.latencyBuckets.set(operation, existing);
  }

  getMetrics(): NotionMetrics & { avgLatencyMs: number; p95LatencyMs: number } {
    const allLatencies = Array.from(this.metrics.latencyBuckets.values()).flat().sort((a, b) => a - b);
    const p95Index = Math.floor(allLatencies.length * 0.95);

    return {
      ...this.metrics,
      avgLatencyMs: this.metrics.requestCount > 0
        ? Math.round(this.metrics.totalLatencyMs / this.metrics.requestCount)
        : 0,
      p95LatencyMs: allLatencies[p95Index] ?? 0,
    };
  }
}

// Usage
const notion = new InstrumentedNotionClient(process.env.NOTION_TOKEN!);

const pages = await notion.call('databases.query', (client) =>
  client.databases.query({ database_id: dbId, page_size: 50 })
);

const user = await notion.call('users.me', (client) =>
  client.users.me({})
);

Python — instrumented wrapper:

import time
import json
import logging
from notion_client import Client, APIResponseError

logger = logging.getLogger("notion")

class InstrumentedNotion:
    def __init__(self, token: str):
        self.client = Client(auth=token, timeout_ms=30_000)
        self.request_count = 0
        self.error_count = 0
        self.rate_limit_count = 0
        self.total_latency_ms = 0.0

    def call(self, operation: str, fn):
        start = time.monotonic()
        self.request_count += 1
        try:
            result = fn(self.client)
            duration_ms = round((time.monotonic() - start) * 1000)
            self.total_latency_ms += duration_ms
            logger.info(json.dumps({
                "service": "notion", "operation": operation,
                "duration_ms": duration_ms, "status": "ok",
            }))
            return result
        except APIResponseError as e:
            duration_ms = round((time.monotonic() - start) * 1000)
            self.total_latency_ms += duration_ms
            self.error_count += 1
            if e.status == 429:
                self.rate_limit_count += 1
            logger.error(json.dumps({
                "service": "notion", "operation": operation,
                "duration_ms": duration_ms, "status": "error",
                "error_code": e.code, "http_status": e.status,
            }))
            raise

# Usage
notion = InstrumentedNotion(os.environ["NOTION_TOKEN"])
pages = notion.call("databases.query",
    lambda c: c.databases.query(database_id=db_id, page_size=50))

Step 2: Prometheus Metrics Export

import { Registry, Counter, Histogram, Gauge } from 'prom-client';

const registry = new Registry();

const notionRequests = new Counter({
  name: 'notion_requests_total',
  help: 'Total Notion API requests',
  labelNames: ['operation', 'status'],
  registers: [registry],
});

const notionDuration = new Histogram({
  name: 'notion_request_duration_seconds',
  help: 'Notion API request latency in seconds',
  labelNames: ['operation'],
  // Buckets tuned for Notion's typical 200-800ms response times
  buckets: [0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.8, 1, 2, 5, 10],
  registers: [registry],
});

const notionErrors = new Counter({
  name: 'notion_errors_total',
  help: 'Notion API errors by error code',
  labelNames: ['code'],
  registers: [registry],
});

const notionRateLimitRemaining = new Gauge({
  name: 'notion_rate_limit_remaining',
  help: 'Estimated remaining rate limit headroom',
  registers: [registry],
});

// Wrap every Notion call with Prometheus instrumentation
async function instrumentedCall<T>(
  operation: string,
  fn: () => Promise<T>
): Promise<T> {
  const timer = notionDuration.startTimer({ operation });
  try {
    const result = await fn();
    notionRequests.inc({ operation, status: 'success' });
    return result;
  } catch (error) {
    notionRequests.inc({ operation, status: 'error' });
    if (isNotionClientError(error)) {
      notionErrors.inc({ code: error.code });
    }
    throw error;
  } finally {
    timer();
  }
}

// Expose /metrics endpoint for Prometheus scraping
app.get('/metrics', async (_req, res) => {
  res.set('Content-Type', registry.contentType);
  res.send(await registry.metrics());
});

Step 3: Health Check, Structured Logging, and Alerting

Health check endpoint:

app.get('/health/notion', async (_req, res) => {
  const checks: Record<string, any> = {};

  // Test Notion API connectivity
  const start = Date.now();
  try {
    const me = await notion.call('health.users.me', (c) => c.users.me({}));
    checks.notion = {
      status: 'connected',
      latencyMs: Date.now() - start,
      botName: me.name,
    };
  } catch (error) {
    checks.notion = {
      status: 'disconnected',
      latencyMs: Date.now() - start,
      error: isNotionClientError(error) ? error.code : 'unknown',
    };
  }

  const healthy = checks.notion.status === 'connected';
  res.status(healthy ? 200 : 503).json({
    status: healthy ? 'healthy' : 'degraded',
    checks,
    metrics: notion.getMetrics(),
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
  });
});

Structured logging with pino:

import pino from 'pino';

const logger = pino({
  name: 'notion-integration',
  level: process.env.LOG_LEVEL || 'info',
  formatters: {
    level: (label) => ({ level: label }),
  },
});

function logNotionCall(
  operation: string,
  durationMs: number,
  result: 'ok' | 'error',
  details?: Record<string, unknown>
) {
  const entry = {
    service: 'notion',
    operation,
    durationMs,
    result,
    ...details,
  };

  if (result === 'error') {
    logger.error(entry, `notion.${operation} failed (${durationMs}ms)`);
  } else if (durationMs > 2000) {
    logger.warn(entry, `notion.${operation} slow (${durationMs}ms)`);
  } else {
    logger.info(entry, `notion.${operation} ok (${durationMs}ms)`);
  }
}

function logRateLimit(operation: string, retryAfterMs: number) {
  logger.warn({
    service: 'notion',
    event: 'rate_limited',
    operation,
    retryAfterMs,
  }, `Rate limited on ${operation}. Retry in ${retryAfterMs}ms`);
}

Prometheus alerting rules:

groups:
  - name: notion_alerts
    rules:
      - alert: NotionHighErrorRate
        expr: >
          rate(notion_errors_total[5m]) /
          rate(notion_requests_total[5m]) > 0.05
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "Notion API error rate exceeds 5%"
          description: "Error rate is {{ $value | humanizePercentage }}"

      - alert: NotionRateLimited
        expr: increase(notion_errors_total{code="rate_limited"}[5m]) > 10
        for: 1m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "Notion rate limit hits increasing"

      - alert: NotionHighLatency
        expr: >
          histogram_quantile(0.95,
            rate(notion_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) > 3
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "Notion P95 latency exceeds 3 seconds"

      - alert: NotionDown
        expr: increase(notion_errors_total{code="service_unavailable"}[5m]) > 5
        for: 2m
        labels:
          severity: critical
        annotations:
          summary: "Notion API appears down (repeated 503 errors)"

Output

• Instrumented Notion client tracking all API calls with per-operation latency buckets
• Prometheus metrics for request rate, latency histograms, and error counters
• Structured JSON logging via pino with slow-query warnings (>2s)
• Health check endpoint with Notion connectivity status and aggregate metrics
• Alerting rules for error rate spikes, rate limiting, high latency, and outages

Error Handling

Examples

Quick Metrics Dashboard Query (PromQL)

# Request rate by operation
rate(notion_requests_total[5m])

# Error percentage
100 * rate(notion_errors_total[5m]) / rate(notion_requests_total[5m])

# P95 latency per operation
histogram_quantile(0.95, rate(notion_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m]))

# Rate limit events in last hour
increase(notion_errors_total{code="rate_limited"}[1h])

Inline Metrics Check (No Prometheus)

// Quick console-based metrics for debugging
setInterval(() => {
  const m = notion.getMetrics();
  console.log(
    `[Notion] requests=${m.requestCount} errors=${m.errorCount} ` +
    `rate_limits=${m.rateLimitCount} avg_latency=${m.avgLatencyMs}ms ` +
    `p95_latency=${m.p95LatencyMs}ms`
  );
}, 60_000); // Log every minute

Resources

• Notion Request Limits — 3 requests/second average
• Notion Error Codes — full error code reference
• Prometheus Naming Best Practices
• pino Logger — fast structured logging for Node.js
• Grafana Dashboard Templates — pre-built API monitoring dashboards

Next Steps

For incident response procedures when monitoring detects failures, see notion-incident-runbook.