APRF-RFC-0004: Split PERF-M2 dashboards — metrics stay mandatory; dashboards → PERF-R4

Field	Value
Status	accepted
Author(s)	StackRail (working-draft publisher)
Created	2026-08-01
SemVer impact	MINOR
Index summary	Rewrites PERF-M2 as mandatory ops metrics; adds PERF-R4 for near-real-time dashboards as recommended maturity.
Related	APRF-RFC-0003 (recommended dashboards / FinOps maturity pattern)

Problem

PERF-M2 required online dashboards for AI latency, error, and ≥1 quality/task-success signal as a mandatory Check (freshness ≤15 minutes). That conflates two different obligations:

Concern	Why a single mandatory was too strong
Emitting ops metrics	Latency, error rate, and AI quality/task-success series are production-blocking: without them, PERF-M1 SLOs and PERF-M3 burn alerts cannot operate.
Near-real-time dashboards	Visualization, panel coverage (throughput, resource utilization), and ≤15m refresh are operator maturity — overlapping OBS-R3 (SLO/burn dashboards) and EVL-M3 (online eval/refusal signals) without adding a Core-level gate.

Keeping dashboards mandatory over-weights presentation vs measurable contracts and emitted metrics. Assessors need a citable split.

Proposal

Rewrite PERF-M2 (same ID, still mandatory must): production AI services must collect and make available operational metrics for latency, error rate, and ≥1 AI-specific quality or task-success indicator; hybrid detection via repo-ai-ops-metrics.
Add PERF-R4 (recommended should): near-real-time operational dashboards should visualize latency, error rate, throughput, resource utilization, and AI quality metrics; hybrid detection via repo-ai-ops-dashboards.
Do not remove PERF-M2 from Core/Regulated (it was never on those profiles as the sole PERF dashboard gate — Core lists PERF-M1 only). Voice lens additionalMandatoryCheckIds keeps PERF-M2 under the metrics meaning.
Keep PERF-R2 as capacity/load tests (adversarial long-prompt / agent-loop) — dashboard obligation must not reuse that ID.

Normative pass conditions remain measurable (metric classes present + available; dashboard coverage + near-real-time freshness; measuredAt ≤90d).

Alternatives considered

Demote entire PERF-M2 → PERF-R\* — rejected; emitted latency/error/quality metrics remain a production minimum distinct from catalog (PERF-M1) and alerts (PERF-M3).
Keep dashboards mandatory; soften freshness — rejected; still blocks assessments for teams with strong exporters but immature boards; duplicates OBS-R3/EVL-M3 presentation concerns.
Reuse PERF-R2 for dashboards — rejected; PERF-R2 already means capacity/load tests.

Compatibility

Change	Impact
PERF-M2 rewritten (metrics)	Same ID; gate stays mandatory; obligation narrowed
PERF-R4 added	Recommended surface +1; catalog 177→178
Core / Regulated mandatories	Unchanged (38 / 54)
Voice lens	Still lists PERF-M2; semantics = metrics, not dashboards

SemVer: MINOR — new recommended Check ID and narrowed mandatory obligation while still on working-draft 0.10.x.

No ID retirement: PERF-M2 was not vacated. No id-gaps.md row is required (unlike INC-M3/M4 or former OBS-M2). After first tagged release, further M→R moves must use deprecate+replacedBy per ARCHITECTURE.md.

Security considerations

No weakening of SLO catalogs (PERF-M1) or burn alerting (PERF-M3). Moving dashboards to recommended reduces false fails for metrics-complete teams; residual risk is slower incident visualization, mitigated by high-severity PERF-R4 plus OBS-R3 / EVL-M3 / INC-R1 siblings.

Open questions

Should Regulated or the Voice lens later require PERF-R4 (or a freshness SLO) as additional mandatory once Level-5 ops maturity is ratified?
Should “near-real-time” stay fixed at ≤15 minutes panel freshness, or become “appropriate for documented incident-response objectives”?

Checklist

Problem and affected parties
Proposed change stated
SemVer impact justified
Compatibility / deprecation plan
Checks remain measurable
Crosswalk impact noted (informative; PERF-M1 crosswalks unchanged)
Security / safety considered
Open questions listed

Comment window: 14 days from Created (working-draft quorum applies). Interim contact: see /aprf/rfc/.