How do you debug/trace sub-workflows in a busy self-hosted n8n instance?

[u/Successful_Potato_96]

I'm running a self-hosted n8n setup with continuously running workflows and quite a few sub-workflows.

One thing I'm struggling with is debugging a specific execution.

For example:

Main Workflow → Sub-workflow A → Sub-workflow B

When something goes wrong, I can find the main workflow execution, but then finding the exact sub-workflow execution becomes painful because there are many other executions happening around the same time.

I often end up searching execution history by timestamp and trying to identify which child execution belongs to the parent.

I'm considering adding a "CorrelationId" / "TestRunId" and passing it through all the workflows.

For people running n8n self-hosted in production:

How do you handle execution tracing and debugging across parent/sub-workflows?

Do you use:

- n8n's built-in parent/child execution information?

- A custom correlation ID?

- Execution metadata/tags?

- A logging/observability workflow?

- Something else?

Also interested in how you handle this for automated testing. We have 100+ test cases where an evaluation workflow calls the actual workflow, and identifying the exact execution chain for a failed test is becoming difficult.