Make analytics events boring on purpose

Exciting analytics is how you get three events for one user action and a dashboard nobody trusts.

The fix is deliberately boring:

1. Name the action, not the screen — Call Started survives a redesign; HomePrimaryCtaTapped does not.
2. One event, properties for variance — medium: cloud|sim, not CallStartedCloud / CallStartedSim.
3. User traits vs event props — plan tier is identify-once; export format is per event.
4. Write the spreadsheet — event | when it fires | properties | owner — and review PRs against it.

I learned this the hard way wiring product analytics for a multi-channel CRM: the taxonomy doc was less glamorous than the Hive buffer and the dedup window, and it prevented more pain than either.

If you want the hands-on version, walk through Designing an Event Taxonomy for Amplitude. For the systems side — buffering, sandbox isolation, dedup — see the product analytics pipeline write-up.

Boring is a feature. Your future self is the primary user of today’s event names.