Reproduce A Rare Retry Path With Loki + proxymock

A reproducible observability lab demonstrates how a production-only branch can produce correct responses while causing unnecessary retries, log volume, dependency calls, and latency that ordinary tests miss. Using a checkout API, Loki structured logs, Grafana MCP, and proxymock recordings, the lab identifies a pricing response for SKU SSC-7300 in a REPRICING state that includes an authoritative last settled price, yet the client retries it three times before using that same value. Replaying recorded traffic shows that 100 of 800 requests follow this path, generating 300 warnings, 100 errors, four dependency calls per affected request, and roughly 432 ms p95 latency while still returning successful responses. Log queries correlate the retries to their dependency state and request chains, while recorded outbound payloads establish that the fallback value was available on the first response rather than inferred after retry exhaustion. A minimal client change honors the settled price immediately but preserves a single warning to record the legitimate repricing transition; replay comparison then confirms identical stable responses and request outcomes, alongside reduced pricing calls, elimination of retry-exhausted errors, and a drop in affected-path p95 duration to about 1 ms. The lab also distinguishes expensive handled state transitions from genuine failures, notes timestamp and measurement limitations, and emphasizes that retry behavior should depend on whether a dependency response contains a usable authoritative value.

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