Agent skill

Service Mesh Observability

Set up tracing, metrics and dashboards for Istio, Linkerd and other service meshes, with golden-signal alerts, SLOs and guidance on sampling and cardinality.

MITAuto-check passedDevOps & Cloud

Install Service Mesh Observability

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .claude/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Paste into Claude Code

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .claude/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

Claude Code copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

$skill-installer

$skill-installer install https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability

Type this inside Codex. $skill-installer <name> installs a curated skill from openai/skills. The installer writes to $CODEX_HOME/skills (default ~/.codex/skills). Restart Codex if the skill does not show up.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a codex

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.codex/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability --agent codex

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .agents/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.agents/skills/ instead of .agents/skills for a personal install.

Codex skills documentation · loads skills from .agents/skills/

Paste into Codex

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .agents/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

Codex copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a cursor

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.cursor/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability --agent cursor

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .cursor/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .cursor/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.cursor/skills/ instead of .cursor/skills for a personal install.

Cursor skills documentation · loads skills from .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/

Paste into Cursor

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .cursor/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

Cursor copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

gemini skills install

$ gemini skills install https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git --path plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability

--scope user (default) or --scope workspace; --path is the subfolder of the repo that holds the skill; --consent skips the security confirmation prompt.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a gemini-cli

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.gemini/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability --agent gemini-cli

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .gemini/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .gemini/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.gemini/skills/ instead of .gemini/skills for a personal install, then run /skills reload.

Gemini CLI skills documentation · loads skills from .gemini/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into Gemini CLI

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .gemini/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

Gemini CLI copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability

Installs for Copilot at project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Preview a skill first with gh skill preview. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a github-copilot

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.copilot/skills/.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .github/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .github/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.copilot/skills/ instead of .github/skills for a personal install. Commit .github/skills so cloud agent and code review can use it.

GitHub Copilot skills documentation · loads skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into GitHub Copilot

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .github/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

GitHub Copilot copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a opencode

OpenCode documents no install command of its own. Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.config/opencode/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install wshobson/agents service-mesh-observability --agent opencode

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .opencode/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability .opencode/skills/service-mesh-observability && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.config/opencode/skills/ instead of .opencode/skills for a personal install.

OpenCode skills documentation · loads skills from .opencode/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into OpenCode

Install the "service-mesh-observability" agent skill from https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability into .opencode/skills/service-mesh-observability/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "service-mesh-observability", then confirm the skill loads.

OpenCode copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

Facts

Skill name: service-mesh-observability
GitHub stars: 40k
Used in: 9 other repos
Token cost: ~607 tokens
SKILL.md length: 166 words
Files: 2 (incl. references)
Skills in repo: 142
Repo updated: Oct 5, 2026
First seen: Oct 7, 2026
Licence: MIT

At a glance

Set up tracing, metrics and dashboards for Istio, Linkerd and other service meshes, with golden-signal alerts, SLOs and guidance on sampling and cardinality.

Works in 2 steps: Three Pillars of Observability → Golden Signals for Mesh
Setting up distributed tracing across mesh services
SKILL.md covers When to Use This Skill, Core Concepts, Templates and detailed worked… and Best Practices
Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

The skill covers observability for service meshes such as Istio and Linkerd: distributed tracing across services, mesh metrics and dashboards, dependency visualization and SLOs for service-to-service communication. The work is framed around the three pillars of observability and a golden-signals table for the mesh.

That table pairs latency (P50 and P99), traffic, errors and saturation with alert thresholds: P99 above 500ms, anomaly detection for traffic, an error rate above 1 percent and resource use above 80 percent. Other advice covers sampling every trace in development but only a small share in production, propagating trace context headers consistently, linking metrics to traces with exemplars, limiting label cardinality, using hot and cold storage tiers and watching what observability itself costs. Templates are in references/details.md.

When your agent uses it

Setting up distributed tracing across mesh services
Debugging latency or error spikes between services
Defining SLOs and alerts for service-to-service traffic
Building dashboards that show service dependencies

Example prompts

“Add distributed tracing to our Istio mesh and propagate trace headers through every service.”
“Create alerts for the four golden signals on our checkout service.”
“P99 latency doubled between the cart and payment services. Help me trace where the time goes.”

Workflow steps

2 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

Three Pillars of Observability
Golden Signals for Mesh

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 46891e7. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

Tool permissions
Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.
From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.
Runs code
No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.
From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.
Network
No URLs in SKILL.md.
From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.
Credentials
Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.
From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Service Mesh Observability loads about 607 tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.5k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 63 tokens; SKILL.md has 166 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it: ~63
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches: ~607
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them: ~2.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from wshobson/agents at commit 46891e7, republished under its MIT licence (© wshobson). 166 words, ~607 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/service-mesh-observability/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.

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

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

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability of wshobson/agents.

SKILL.md
references/details.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 46891e7

Used in 9 other repositories

We found 19 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 9 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in wshobson/agents, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

Compare with similar skills

Service Mesh Observability next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Service Mesh Observability compared with similar skills
Skill	Stars	Used in	Tokens	Auto-check	Licence	Repo updated
Service Mesh Observability this skillwshobson/agents	40k	9 repos	~607	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	6 days ago
Monitoring Observabilityahmedasmar/devops-claude-skills	203	—	~3.9k	Automated safety check: Pass	None	6 mo ago
Prometheus Error Rate Investigatorprometheus/prometheus-mcp	121	—	~592	Automated safety check: Pass	Apache-2.0	yesterday
Oma Observabilityfirst-fluke/oh-my-agent	1.3k	—	~4.9k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	yesterday
Observability Sre Triageelastic/agent-skills	592	—	~7.4k	Automated safety check: Pass	Apache-2.0	3 days ago
Observability Service Healthaspectrr/deer	405	—	~1.2k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	5 mo ago

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Questions about Service Mesh Observability

What does Service Mesh Observability do?

Set up tracing, metrics and dashboards for Istio, Linkerd and other service meshes, with golden-signal alerts, SLOs and guidance on sampling and cardinality. The skill covers observability for service meshes such as Istio and Linkerd: distributed tracing across services, mesh metrics and dashboards, dependency visualization and SLOs for service-to-service communication. The work is framed around the three pillars of observability and a golden-signals table for the mesh.

When should I use Service Mesh Observability?

Service Mesh Observability fits situations like: setting up distributed tracing across mesh services; debugging latency or error spikes between services; defining SLOs and alerts for service-to-service traffic; building dashboards that show service dependencies.

How do I install Service Mesh Observability in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability in wshobson/agents) into .claude/skills/service-mesh-observability in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Service Mesh Observability in Codex?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/service-mesh-observability in wshobson/agents) into .agents/skills/service-mesh-observability in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Service Mesh Observability in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill service-mesh-observability -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/service-mesh-observability, .gemini/skills/service-mesh-observability, .github/skills/service-mesh-observability and .opencode/skills/service-mesh-observability in your project.

What does Service Mesh Observability need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Service Mesh Observability is instructions for the agent only.

Does Service Mesh Observability access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Service Mesh Observability safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Service Mesh Observability use?

Service Mesh Observability is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Service Mesh Observability use?

About 607 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 2.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 1.9k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Service Mesh Observability?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Service Mesh Observability: Monitoring Observability (ahmedasmar/devops-claude-skills, 203 stars), Prometheus Error Rate Investigator (prometheus/prometheus-mcp, 121 stars), Oma Observability (first-fluke/oh-my-agent, 1.3k stars) and Observability Sre Triage (elastic/agent-skills, 592 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Service Mesh Observability?

wshobson (a GitHub user) maintains it in wshobson/agents, which has 40,314 GitHub stars. The repository holds 142 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 5, 2026.

Source: wshobson/agents on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.

Install Service Mesh Observability

Facts

At a glance

What it does

When your agent uses it

Example prompts

Workflow steps

What it can do on your machine

Tool permissions

Runs code

Network

Credentials

Context cost

Safety

SKILL.md

Service Mesh Observability

When to Use This Skill

Core Concepts

1. Three Pillars of Observability

2. Golden Signals for Mesh

Templates and detailed worked examples

Best Practices

Do's

Don'ts

Files

Used in 9 other repositories

Compare with similar skills

Similar skills

More from wshobson/agents

Related

Questions about Service Mesh Observability