service-mesh-observability
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.
Documentation
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
# 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
# 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
# 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
# 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 JSO
Quick Info
- Source
- antigravity
- Category
- Creative & Media
- Repository
- View Repo
- Scraped At
- Jan 29, 2026
Tags
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