slo-implementation
Define and implement Service Level Indicators (SLIs) and Service Level Objectives (SLOs) with error budgets and alerting. Use when establishing reliability targets, implementing SRE practices, or measuring service performance.
Documentation
SLO Implementation
Framework for defining and implementing Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and error budgets.
Do not use this skill when
- The task is unrelated to slo implementation
- 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.
Purpose
Implement measurable reliability targets using SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets to balance reliability with innovation velocity.
Use this skill when
- Define service reliability targets
- Measure user-perceived reliability
- Implement error budgets
- Create SLO-based alerts
- Track reliability goals
SLI/SLO/SLA Hierarchy
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
↓ Contract with customers
SLO (Service Level Objective)
↓ Internal reliability target
SLI (Service Level Indicator)
↓ Actual measurement
Defining SLIs
Common SLI Types
1. Availability SLI
# Successful requests / Total requests
sum(rate(http_requests_total{status!~"5.."}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_requests_total[28d]))
2. Latency SLI
# Requests below latency threshold / Total requests
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket{le="0.5"}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_count[28d]))
3. Durability SLI
# Successful writes / Total writes
sum(storage_writes_successful_total)
/
sum(storage_writes_total)
Reference: See references/slo-definitions.md
Setting SLO Targets
Availability SLO Examples
| SLO % | Downtime/Month | Downtime/Year |
|---|---|---|
| 99% | 7.2 hours | 3.65 days |
| 99.9% | 43.2 minutes | 8.76 hours |
| 99.95% | 21.6 minutes | 4.38 hours |
| 99.99% | 4.32 minutes | 52.56 minutes |
Choose Appropriate SLOs
Consider:
- User expectations
- Business requirements
- Current performance
- Cost of reliability
- Competitor benchmarks
Example SLOs:
slos:
- name: api_availability
target: 99.9
window: 28d
sli: |
sum(rate(http_requests_total{status!~"5.."}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_requests_total[28d]))
- name: api_latency_p95
target: 99
window: 28d
sli: |
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket{le="0.5"}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_count[28d]))
Error Budget Calculation
Error Budget Formula
Error Budget = 1 - SLO Target
Example:
- SLO: 99.9% availability
- Error Budget: 0.1% = 43.2 minutes/month
- Current Error: 0.05% = 21.6 minutes/month
- Remaining Budget: 50%
Error Budget Policy
error_budget_policy:
- remaining_budget: 100%
action: Normal development velocity
- remaining_budget: 50%
action: Consider postponing risky changes
- remaining_budget: 10%
action: Freeze non-critical changes
- remaining_budget: 0%
action: Feature freeze, focus on reliability
Reference: See references/error-budget.md
SLO Implementation
Prometheus Recording Rules
# SLI Recording Rules
groups:
- name: sli_rules
interval: 30s
rules:
# Availability SLI
- record: sli:http_availability:ratio
expr: |
sum(rate(http_requests_total{status!~"5.."}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_requests_total[28d]))
# Latency SLI (requests < 500ms)
- record: sli:http_latency:ratio
expr: |
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket{le="0.5"}[28d]))
/
sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_count[28d]))
- name: slo_rules
interval: 5m
rules:
# SLO compliance (1 = meeting SLO, 0 = violating)
- record: slo:http_availability:compliance
expr: sli:http_availability:ratio >= bool 0.999
- record: slo:http_latency:compliance
expr: sli:http_latency:ratio >= bool 0.99
# Error budget remaining (percentage)
- record: slo:http_availability:error_budget_remaining
expr: |
(sli:http_availability:ratio - 0.999) / (1 - 0.999) * 100
# Error budget burn rate
- record: slo:http_availability:burn_rate_5m
expr: |
(1 - (
sum(rate(http_requests_total{status!~"5.."}[5m]))
/
sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m]))
)) / (1 - 0.999)
SLO Alerting Rules
groups:
- name: slo_alerts
interval: 1m
rules:
# Fast burn: 14.4x rate, 1 hour window
# Consumes 2% error budget in 1 hour
- alert: SLOErrorBudgetBurnFast
expr: |
slo:http_availability:burn_rate_1h > 14.4
and
slo:http_availability:burn_rate_5m > 14.4
for: 2m
labels:
severity: critical
annotations:
summary: "Fast error budget bu
Quick Info
- Source
- antigravity
- Category
- Document Processing
- Repository
- View Repo
- Scraped At
- Jan 29, 2026
Tags
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