wshobson/agents

service-mesh-observability

Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes including distributed tracing, metrics, and visualization.

View source

How to use

  1. Copy the installation command and review the source package before installing it in your own agent environment.
  2. Check the source document for required tools, credentials and supported hosts.
  3. Describe your input and desired deliverable; review the output against the source material.
npx skills add https://github.com/wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability

Before you start

  • Installation does not include a model subscription, API allowance or permission to access your files.
  • Repository stars and installation counts describe activity, not an independent quality or security test.
Original skill document

Rendered from the source repository. Headings, examples, code, tables, links, and referenced images are preserved.

Service Mesh Observability

Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments.

When to Use This Skill

  • Setting up distributed tracing across services
  • Implementing service mesh metrics and dashboards
  • Debugging latency and error issues
  • Defining SLOs for service communication
  • Visualizing service dependencies
  • Troubleshooting mesh connectivity

Core Concepts

1. Three Pillars of Observability

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Observability                       │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│     Metrics     │     Traces      │      Logs       │
│                 │                 │                 │
│ • Request rate  │ • Span context  │ • Access logs   │
│ • Error rate    │ • Latency       │ • Error details │
│ • Latency P50   │ • Dependencies  │ • Debug info    │
│ • Saturation    │ • Bottlenecks   │ • Audit trail   │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘

2. Golden Signals for Mesh

SignalDescriptionAlert Threshold
LatencyRequest duration P50, P99P99 > 500ms
TrafficRequests per secondAnomaly detection
Errors5xx error rate> 1%
SaturationResource utilization> 80%

Templates and detailed worked examples

Full template library and detailed worked examples live in references/details.md. Read that file when you need the concrete templates.

Best Practices

Do's

  • Sample appropriately - 100% in dev, 1-10% in prod
  • Use trace context - Propagate headers consistently
  • Set up alerts - For golden signals
  • Correlate metrics/traces - Use exemplars
  • Retain strategically - Hot/cold storage tiers

Don'ts

  • Don't over-sample - Storage costs add up
  • Don't ignore cardinality - Limit label values
  • Don't skip dashboards - Visualize dependencies
  • Don't forget costs - Monitor observability costs

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