1. A method, implemented by a computing system programmed to perform the following, comprising: receiving, by an operating system of the computing system, a request of a first application to monitor performance of a second application, the request identifying an event to monitor during execution of a task associated with the second application; causing, by the operating system of the computing system, a task counter corresponding to the event to be activated; for each child of the task, automatically activating a child task counter upon receiving a notification that execution of a corresponding child task is starting; adding a value of each child task counter to a value of the task counter to determine a total counter value for the task; and providing, by the operating system, the total counter value of the task to the first application.