Introduction

LeanSignal is a demand-driven observability platform: it collects only the telemetry tied to a declared need, so observability cost stays locked to value — by design.

Instead of shipping every metric, log line, and span your systems can emit to central storage and pruning later — after the bill — you declare the telemetry you actually need (a demand), and the edge agent forwards exactly that subset while keeping full detail available at the source. Every stored signal is tied to the need it serves, and new cost only ever comes from new need.

Why demand-driven?

Traditional observability runs a loop every platform team knows: store everything → bill shock → reactive pruning → repeat. You either keep all telemetry and pay for noise, or whitelist blindly and lose signal you didn’t know you’d need. Either way, cost grows with data volume, not with the value it delivers.

LeanSignal inverts the loop:

1. You describe what you want to see — dashboards and alerts express demand.
2. LeanSignal computes the exact set of timeseries, log streams, and trace services that satisfies that demand.
3. The edge agent forwards only that set to central storage, while keeping a short full-fidelity buffer locally so you can always explore what else is available.

The result is a cost–value link the store-everything model structurally can’t offer: you can see which spend buys which value, and retiring a dashboard retires its cost. See Architecture for the pain-cycle vs value-cycle picture, or Demand-driven observability for the idea in depth.

What’s in the box

• The LeanSignal Agent — a custom OpenTelemetry Collector distribution that runs at the edge (one per cluster or environment), indexes every metric your systems emit, keeps short local log and trace windows, and forwards the demanded subset of all three signals.
• The LeanSignal app — where you define demands, build dashboards, configure alerts, and manage agents and users.
• The integrations catalog — ready-made demands: curated dashboards and alerts for common runtimes, databases, and infrastructure, imported in one step.

Standards on both ends — OpenTelemetry in, PromQL out — so adopting the model doesn’t mean adopting a proprietary agent.

Note

The agent is open-source software, and your telemetry is processed and stored within the European Union, in line with the GDPR. See Security & data residency for details.

Next steps

• Getting started — create an account and connect your first agent.
• Install the agent — deploy the collector.
• Demand-driven observability — the core idea in depth.