Synthetic Monitoring Setup: Protecting Critical Paths from Failures

Synthetic Monitoring Setup: Protecting Critical Paths from Failures

Imagine: in the middle of a workday, the order form goes down. Uptime monitoring shows 200 OK, but users can't pay. We implement Synthetic Monitoring — browser-based monitoring that runs through key scenarios every 5-15 minutes and triggers an alert on error. Over 5 years of practice on 50+ projects, we've refined our method. It catches failures before the business notices them.

Synthetic Monitoring mimics real user actions. It opens a browser, walks through a scenario (like placing an order), and records the time of each step, any errors, and screenshots. This detects problems invisible to uptime monitoring: broken JavaScript, changed selectors, slow API responses. According to State of Synthetic Monitoring, 78% of companies already use synthetic checks for critical scenarios. Synthetic checks answer the question "Is the business working?" not just "Is the server responding?" It's a key element of Business Continuity.

On a typical e-commerce site, we set up 5-7 scenarios: search, product card, cart, checkout, order confirmation. For SaaS — login, resource creation, key action. Each scenario runs from multiple regions to filter out random network errors.

Difference from uptime monitoring

A simple ping to GET / is not synthetic monitoring. It only answers "Is the server alive?" Synthetic monitoring checks business functions:

• New user registration
• Search and result display
• Adding item to cart
• Going through checkout

Such automated checks provide availability and performance metrics for each step. This directly impacts revenue: if checkout is broken, the site loses money. One hour of checkout downtime can cost up to $100,000 for an average e-commerce site. This depends on traffic and average order value.

Which critical paths we monitor

Why we choose Playwright + Checkly

Playwright is a modern browser automation framework. It works with Chromium, Firefox, WebKit. Playwright runs tests 2-3 times faster than Puppeteer due to parallel contexts and efficient browser management. Combined with Checkly (managed platform), we get test execution from 10+ regions worldwide. It provides screenshots on error, waterfall trace of requests, and integration with PagerDuty, Slack, Opsgenie.

Example script for checkout check:

// checkly: checkout-flow.spec.js const { chromium } = require('playwright') const { expect } = require('@playwright/test') async function checkoutFlow() { const browser = await chromium.launch() const page = await browser.newPage() try { // Open catalog await page.goto('https://www.saucedemo.com/inventory.html') await expect(page.locator('.product-grid')).toBeVisible() // Select first product await page.locator('.product-card').first().click() await expect(page.locator('[data-testid="product-title"]')).toBeVisible() // Add to cart await page.locator('[data-testid="add-to-cart"]').click() await expect(page.locator('[data-testid="cart-count"]')).toContainText('1') // Go to cart await page.goto('https://www.saucedemo.com/cart.html') await expect(page.locator('.cart-items')).toContainText('1 товар') console.log('Checkout flow: PASS') } finally { await browser.close() } } 

What's included in turnkey Synthetic Monitoring setup

• Critical path audit: together we identify 5-7 scenarios that drive your business
• Writing Playwright tests with error handling and assertions
• Configuring a managed platform (Checkly or Datadog) or self-hosted on GitHub Actions
• Alert integration into PagerDuty, Telegram, Slack
• Test data management: creating a test user, cleaning orders, excluding from analytics
• Documentation for launch and maintenance
• Team training (1-hour video call)

Schedule a free consultation — we'll help you choose the optimal monitoring solution.

Self-hosted option: GitHub Actions + Playwright

If budget is limited, we deploy monitoring on GitHub Actions. Code in a repository, run on cron every 5-15 minutes:

name: Synthetic Monitoring on: schedule: - cron: '*/5 * * * *' workflow_dispatch: jobs: check-critical-paths: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Install Playwright run: npx playwright install chromium - name: Run synthetic checks run: npx playwright test tests/synthetic/ - name: Notify on failure if: failure() run: curl -X POST "$SLACK_WEBHOOK" -d '{"text":"FAILED"}' 

Limitation: GitHub Actions cron does not guarantee second-level accuracy (can be delayed 5-15 minutes). For time-critical scenarios, use managed services.

How Synthetic Monitoring prevents revenue loss?

Real case: after a CMS update, a retailer's delivery method selection step broke. Uptime monitoring was silent (200 OK), and orders weren't placed for 4 hours. Synthetic check caught the problem 5 minutes after deployment. Thanks to fast feedback, downtime was minimized, saving the business an estimated $50,000 per month.

Work stages and timelines

1. Analysis (1 day): define critical paths, agree on test data
2. Test development (1-2 days): write Playwright scripts, set up environment
3. Platform integration (1 day): Checkly / Datadog / GitHub Actions + alerts
4. Testing (0.5 day): run tests, adjust timeouts and locators
5. Deployment and handover (0.5 day): documentation, training, access transfer

Total timeline — from 2 to 5 business days depending on number of scenarios. We'll evaluate your project for free — get in touch via email or messenger.

Test data management

• Dedicated synthetic user with a production account
• Payment method: test card (Stripe 4242)
• Orders tagged as synthetic and excluded from reports
• Daily cart and draft cleanup via API

Metrics and alerts

Alerts: if 2 out of 3 checks from different regions fail — critical in PagerDuty. We set escalation to the team within 5 minutes.

Ready to implement Synthetic Monitoring and protect your business from downtime? Contact us — we'll evaluate your project in one day. Get a consultation with an engineer — we'll show you how to secure your project.