Should you use Java Agents to instrument your application?
Trade-offs around Java agent-based instrumentation
If you have worked with any APMs (or other monitoring/observability products) under Java, you might have heard something like: [paraphrased-marketing-text] to track everything from performance issues to errors within your application, just attach the Java Agent to your app and all of your problems are gone [/paraphrased-marketing-text].
You can read things like this in product docs, or blog posts or hear from sales, marketing, and even in conference talks. What I think you can hear less are the trade-offs, so let’s dive a little bit into that.