Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes

Service mesh observability

by wshobson · MIT license · ★ 39,857 on GitHub · updated Sep 21

Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes including distributed tracing, metrics, and visualization. Use when setting up mesh monitoring, debugging latency issues, or implementing SLOs for service communication.

---
name: service-mesh-observability
description: Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes including distributed tracing, metrics, and visualization. Use when setting up mesh monitoring, debugging latency issues, or implementing SLOs for service communication.
---

# 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

Overview

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

Manual install (npx, ZIP)

Claude Codenpx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -g -a claude-code

Claude Code (manual)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && curl -sL https://codeload.github.com/wshobson/agents/tar.gz/4236bb91f839 \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills --strip-components=4 agents-4236bb91f839/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability

Windows (PowerShell)

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\.claude\skills" | Out-Null; Invoke-WebRequest "https://m.agentalley.io/zip/ef532588adbc3d1b8db9/service-mesh-observability.zip" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\service-mesh-observability.zip"; Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\service-mesh-observability.zip" -DestinationPath "$HOME\.claude\skills" -Force

Claude.ai / desktopDownload the ZIP and upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

Codex, Cursor, other agentsPoint them at SKILL.md. The other files are plain text.

Connects with Agent Alley MCP · agentalley.io/mcp

Files included

SKILL.md2.8 KB
references/1 file · 7.5 KB

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wshobson/4236bb92 files

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Outline

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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

Signal	Description	Alert Threshold
Latency	Request duration P50, P99	P99 > 500ms
Traffic	Requests per second	Anomaly detection
Errors	5xx error rate	> 1%
Saturation	Resource 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

1	---
2	name: service-mesh-observability
3	description: Implement comprehensive observability for service meshes including distributed tracing, metrics, and visualization. Use when setting up mesh monitoring, debugging latency issues, or implementing SLOs for service communication.
4	---
5
6	# Service Mesh Observability
7
8	Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments.
9
10	## When to Use This Skill
11
12	- Setting up distributed tracing across services
13	- Implementing service mesh metrics and dashboards
14	- Debugging latency and error issues
15	- Defining SLOs for service communication
16	- Visualizing service dependencies
17	- Troubleshooting mesh connectivity
18
19	## Core Concepts
20
21	### 1. Three Pillars of Observability
22
23	```
24	┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
25	│ Observability │
26	├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
27	│ Metrics │ Traces │ Logs │
28	│ │ │ │
29	│ • Request rate │ • Span context │ • Access logs │
30	│ • Error rate │ • Latency │ • Error details │
31	│ • Latency P50 │ • Dependencies │ • Debug info │
32	│ • Saturation │ • Bottlenecks │ • Audit trail │
33	└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
34	```
35
36	### 2. Golden Signals for Mesh
37
38	\| Signal \| Description \| Alert Threshold \|
39	\| -------------- \| ------------------------- \| ----------------- \|
40	\| Latency \| Request duration P50, P99 \| P99 > 500ms \|
41	\| Traffic \| Requests per second \| Anomaly detection \|
42	\| Errors \| 5xx error rate \| > 1% \|
43	\| Saturation \| Resource utilization \| > 80% \|
44
45	## Templates and detailed worked examples
46
47	Full template library and detailed worked examples live in `references/details.md`. Read that file when you need the concrete templates.
48
49	## Best Practices
50
51	### Do's
52
53	- Sample appropriately - 100% in dev, 1-10% in prod
54	- Use trace context - Propagate headers consistently
55	- Set up alerts - For golden signals
56	- Correlate metrics/traces - Use exemplars
57	- Retain strategically - Hot/cold storage tiers
58
59	### Don'ts
60
61	- Don't over-sample - Storage costs add up
62	- Don't ignore cardinality - Limit label values
63	- Don't skip dashboards - Visualize dependencies
64	- Don't forget costs - Monitor observability costs
65