--- name: service-mesh-observability-8435da5883b2 description: "Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments." risk: critical source: community date_added: "2026-02-27" --- # Service Mesh Observability Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments. ## Do not use this skill when - The task is unrelated to service mesh observability - You need a different domain or tool outside this scope ## Instructions - Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs. - Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes. - Provide actionable steps and verification. - If detailed examples are required, open `resources/implementation-playbook.md`. ## Use this skill when - 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 ### Template 1: Istio with Prometheus & Grafana ```yaml # Install Prometheus apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: prometheus namespace: istio-system data: prometheus.yml: | global: scrape_interval: 15s scrape_configs: - job_name: 'istio-mesh' kubernetes_sd_configs: - role: endpoints namespaces: names: - istio-system relabel_configs: - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_name] action: keep regex: istio-telemetry --- # ServiceMonitor for Prometheus Operator apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1 kind: ServiceMonitor metadata: name: istio-mesh namespace: istio-system spec: selector: matchLabels: app: istiod endpoints: - port: http-monitoring interval: 15s ``` ### Template 2: Key Istio Metrics Queries ```promql # Request rate by service sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination"}[5m])) by (destination_service_name) # Error rate (5xx) sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination", response_code=~"5.."}[5m])) / sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination"}[5m])) * 100 # P99 latency histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket{reporter="destination"}[5m])) by (le, destination_service_name)) # TCP connections sum(istio_tcp_connections_opened_total{reporter="destination"}) by (destination_service_name) # Request size histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_bytes_bucket{reporter="destination"}[5m])) by (le, destination_service_name)) ``` ### Template 3: Jaeger Distributed Tracing ```yaml # Jaeger installation for Istio apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1 kind: IstioOperator spec: meshConfig: enableTracing: true defaultConfig: tracing: sampling: 100.0 # 100% in dev, lower in prod zipkin: address: jaeger-collector.istio-system:9411 --- # Jaeger deployment apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: jaeger namespace: istio-system spec: selector: matchLabels: app: jaeger template: metadata: labels: app: jaeger spec: containers: - name: jaeger image: jaegertracing/all-in-one:1.50 ports: - containerPort: 5775 # UDP - containerPort: 6831 # Thrift - containerPort: 6832 # Thrift - containerPort: 5778 # Config - containerPort: 16686 # UI - containerPort: 14268 # HTTP - containerPort: 14250 # gRPC - containerPort: 9411 # Zipkin env: - name: COLLECTOR_ZIPKIN_HOST_PORT value: ":9411" ``` ### Template 4: Linkerd Viz Dashboard ```bash # Install Linkerd viz extension linkerd viz install | kubectl apply -f - # Access dashboard linkerd viz dashboard # CLI commands for observability # Top requests linkerd viz top deploy/my-app # Per-route metrics linkerd viz routes deploy/my-app --to deploy/backend # Live traffic inspection linkerd viz tap deploy/my-app --to deploy/backend # Service edges (dependencies) linkerd viz edges deployment -n my-namespace ``` ### Template 5: Grafana Dashboard JSON ```json { "dashboard": { "title": "Service Mesh Overview", "panels": [ { "title": "Request Rate", "type": "graph", "targets": [ { "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (destination_service_name)", "legendFormat": "{{destination_service_name}}" } ] }, { "title": "Error Rate", "type": "gauge", "targets": [ { "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{response_code=~\"5..\"}[5m])) / sum(rate(istio_requests_total[5m])) * 100" } ], "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "thresholds": { "steps": [ {"value": 0, "color": "green"}, {"value": 1, "color": "yellow"}, {"value": 5, "color": "red"} ] } } } }, { "title": "P99 Latency", "type": "graph", "targets": [ { "expr": "histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (le, destination_service_name))", "legendFormat": "{{destination_service_name}}" } ] }, { "title": "Service Topology", "type": "nodeGraph", "targets": [ { "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (source_workload, destination_service_name)" } ] } ] } } ``` ### Template 6: Kiali Service Mesh Visualization ```yaml # Kiali installation apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1 kind: Kiali metadata: name: kiali namespace: istio-system spec: auth: strategy: anonymous # or openid, token deployment: accessible_namespaces: - "**" external_services: prometheus: url: http://prometheus.istio-system:9090 tracing: url: http://jaeger-query.istio-system:16686 grafana: url: http://grafana.istio-system:3000 ``` ### Template 7: OpenTelemetry Integration ```yaml # OpenTelemetry Collector for mesh apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: otel-collector-config data: config.yaml: | receivers: otlp: protocols: grpc: endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317 http: endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318 zipkin: endpoint: 0.0.0.0:9411 processors: batch: timeout: 10s exporters: jaeger: endpoint: jaeger-collector:14250 tls: insecure: true prometheus: endpoint: 0.0.0.0:8889 service: pipelines: traces: receivers: [otlp, zipkin] processors: [batch] exporters: [jaeger] metrics: receivers: [otlp] processors: [batch] exporters: [prometheus] --- # Istio Telemetry v2 with OTel apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1 kind: Telemetry metadata: name: mesh-default namespace: istio-system spec: tracing: - providers: - name: otel randomSamplingPercentage: 10 ``` ## Alerting Rules ```yaml apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1 kind: PrometheusRule metadata: name: mesh-alerts namespace: istio-system spec: groups: - name: mesh.rules rules: - alert: HighErrorRate expr: | sum(rate(istio_requests_total{response_code=~"5.."}[5m])) by (destination_service_name) / sum(rate(istio_requests_total[5m])) by (destination_service_name) > 0.05 for: 5m labels: severity: critical annotations: summary: "High error rate for {{ $labels.destination_service_name }}" - alert: HighLatency expr: | histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket[5m])) by (le, destination_service_name)) > 1000 for: 5m labels: severity: warning annotations: summary: "High P99 latency for {{ $labels.destination_service_name }}" - alert: MeshCertExpiring expr: | (certmanager_certificate_expiration_timestamp_seconds - time()) / 86400 < 7 labels: severity: warning annotations: summary: "Mesh certificate expiring in less than 7 days" ``` ## 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 ## Resources - [Istio Observability](https://istio.io/latest/docs/tasks/observability/) - [Linkerd Observability](https://linkerd.io/2.14/features/dashboard/) - [OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/) - [Kiali](https://kiali.io/) ## Limitations - Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above. - Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review. - Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing. --- Source attribution: TJSNDHU Original project: https://github.com/TJSNDHU/Aurem/blob/b58fa793bd971fa2139306d18e8b9e5e91854626/.agent/skills/plugins/antigravity-awesome-skills-claude/skills/service-mesh-observability/SKILL.md License: MIT License information: https://opensource.org/license/mit Original upstream instructions; downloaded from Mega AI Hub. ## Upstream license notice MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 Antigravity User Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. # Mega AI Hub resource metadata Creator / publisher: TJSNDHU Original project: https://github.com/TJSNDHU/Aurem/blob/b58fa793bd971fa2139306d18e8b9e5e91854626/.agent/skills/plugins/antigravity-awesome-skills-claude/skills/service-mesh-observability/SKILL.md Attribution basis: Source repository record Fields of work: Development & Engineering, Product Management Roles: Backend Developer, Data Engineer, DevOps / SRE, Product Manager, Technical Product Manager Specialties: Backend, DevOps Tools: Grafana, Istio, Jaeger, Linkerd, Prometheus Country applicability: Country not specified Classification basis: Source catalog labels Instruction SHA-256: ac0e40b3783c0fde1cf6611fcdb6609f0d37f9f660cac1e74545cdeae2963fc0