Documentation, API, and Guides

What is Tailbits?

Tailbits is “customer success for API companies.” We help you see developer progress (not just system health or UI clicks), so you can reduce time-to-first-success, spot stalls, and nudge customers before they churn.

⚠️ Early access note
This introduction outlines the product direction. Names, endpoints, and SDK details may evolve as we finalize the API.

What Tailbits does (at a glance)

  • Maps API calls to user-level journeys so you can tell who is progressing, where they got stuck, and why.
  • Surfaces roadblocks (version drift, SDK mismatch, validation errors) with a timer on each stall.
  • Triggers lightweight nudges (checklists or notifications) at the exact moment and step that matter.
  • Generates live customer profiles—one page per user/account, built from real API usage.

Why this exists

Traditional observability shows systems are OK. Product analytics shows clicks are happening. Neither tells you if a developer actually reached first success with your API.

Tailbits sits in the missing middle: it translates raw API events into adoption journeys and stall insights, giving Product, DX, and Customer Success a shared, operational view of developer progress.

Key concepts

  • Journey
    An ordered set of API events that define progress (e.g., create API key → POST /accounts → 201 on /invoices).

  • Time-to-First-Success (TTFS)
    Time from signup to the first meaningful resource or outcome.

How it fits in

Integrate once. Define journeys. Detect stalls & nudge.

  1. Integrate once
    Drop-in collectors via SDKs (Node/Go/Python/Ruby) and gateway taps (Cloudflare/Kong/NGINX). Tailbits attaches user/account context and normalizes events.

  2. Define adoption journeys
    Compose journeys as simple recipes over ordered API events. We compute them in real time and retroactively over historical logs.

  3. Detect stalls & trigger nudges
    Tailbits flags stalls, attributes likely causes (e.g., enum_invalid:plan), and can trigger a lightweight checklist or message—only where it matters.

Who it’s for

  • Product & DX — reduce TTFS, see SDK/version coverage, verify that docs and examples unstick real users.
  • Customer Success & AM — identify at-risk accounts with user-level clarity and suggest the next best action.
  • Engineering — stop building bespoke dashboards; instrument once and reuse everywhere.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Live Customer Profiles
    See endpoints touched, recent errors, SDK & version, API version, journey state, stall timer, and a suggested next step.

  • Version & SDK Views
    Track adoption by API version and SDKs; spot drift and outdated clients.

  • Validation Error Lens (4xx)
    Group schema errors like missing_field:id or enum_invalid:plan and quantify how they delay activation.

  • Targeted Nudges
    Trigger checklists or notifications when someone stalls at a step for N hours/days. Measure TTFS and completion rate shifts.

Architecture (high level)

  • Collectors: SDK middleware and/or gateway taps that emit normalized API events with user/account context.
  • Stream & Compute: Real-time evaluation of journeys and stalls.
  • Nudges: Lightweight, opt-in triggers scoped to a journey step and stall threshold.

Integration overview (preview)

  • SDKs: Add a small middleware to your API or gateway; attach user/account identifiers you already have.
  • Identity: Pass an account/project ID and an end-user ID (or another stable key) with each event.
  • Journeys: Define steps as ordered event rules (e.g., method, path, status, and optional schema checks).
  • Nudges: Configure where and when to notify; Tailbits only fires when the stall condition is met.

Common questions

Is Tailbits an observability tool?
Not exactly. We focus on developer progress (journeys and stalls), not metrics/logs for system health.

Will this replace our product analytics?
It complements it. Product analytics tracks UI clicks; Tailbits tracks the API journey from “200 OK” to “activated customer.”

How does pricing work?
During early access we’re finalizing plans. Expect usage-aligned tiers. Details will appear in the Billing section as they solidify.

Where to go next

  • Quickstart – Add the middleware and send your first events (coming soon)

Last updated: October 10, 2025.